Next page Smart Test Machines Be it the whine of a race car or the roar from a space shuttle liftoff, also at work is the meshing of materials running at high-speed, under intense pressure and high heat loads. By using lubricants, the inner-workings of such engines can be protected from excessive wear and tear. Making the task even more difficult was developing ways to simulate high stress contacts between materials, not on a macro-scale, but down to microscopic level. Wedeven formerly worked for NASA Lewis Research Center where he carried out studies in bearing lubrication for aerospace products.
Tribology is the science of lubrication and friction between material surfaces in motion.
The effort involved NASA, some six universities and several university professors. Central to the ICT program was crossing the discipline barriers between chemistry, material science, surface physics, engineering design and application. Wedeven's ICT initiative, in fact, linked the tribology disciplines of chemistry, mechanics and materials parts for application to advanced aeropropulsion systems. This NASA-sponsored ICT work provided the foundation for Wedeven in 1983 to form his own company, Wedeven Associates, Inc., of Edgmont, Pennsylvania. The small firm is now blazing new trails to provide industry with a quick-response problem solving ability and a more proficient means to get tribology into the marketplace.