Least Environmental Impact For Sustainable Mobility
The LEAFS project aims to develop a national research and innovation infrastructure dedicated to sustainable mobility, with a particular focus on tribology and advanced functional surfaces. The initiative seeks to consolidate and enhance the expertise of the involved partners – PoliBa, PoliMi, and Pirelli – in the automotive and railway sectors, in advanced materials and surface technologies, extending the applications to further industrial fields.
LEAFS will serve as a hub for innovation and technology transfer, supporting industrial operators in the development of more efficient, safe, and sustainable components and solutions from an environmental, social, and economic standpoint. In particular, the infrastructure will allow for the characterization and optimization of grip, wear, durability, and safety of rolling and sliding components, such as tires, railway wheels, and brake materials, under controlled conditions of temperature, humidity, and weather agents.
The infrastructure will be equipped with state-of-the-art laboratories and tools, including tribometers, cryogenic and high-temperature chambers, optical profilometers, machines for biaxial testing and tribo-corrosion, micro- and nano-structuring systems for surfaces, and high-performance computing platforms. Thanks to integration with artificial intelligence and simulations, LEAFS will enable scalability from the laboratory to the field, promoting the design and validation of innovative materials and components for electric vehicles, energy storage systems, biomedical applications, and mass industrial production.
LEAFS represents a fundamental step in strengthening national competitiveness in the field of sustainable mobility, establishing itself as a reference point in Italy and as a European benchmark for the characterization of materials, functional surfaces, and high-performance products in real and controlled scenarios.
