Professor Roger Lewis
School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering
Professor of Mechanical Engineering


+44 114 222 7838
Full contact details
School of Mechanical, Aerospace and Civil Engineering
Sir Frederick Mappin Building
Mappin Street
Sheffield
S1 3JD
- Profile
-
Professor Roger Lewis became a lecturer in the Department in 2002 and was promoted to Senior Lecturer in 2006, before becoming a Reader in 2011 and then being awarded a personal chair in 2013.
He graduated from Âé¶¹ÊÓÆµ in 1996 with an MEng in Mechanical Engineering and continued to work at Sheffield towards a PhD in the Tribology Âé¶¹ÊÓÆµ Group. He then had posts as a Âé¶¹ÊÓÆµ Associate and Teaching Fellow in the Department.
In 2001 he was awarded the Tribology Trust Bronze Medal and in 2003 received a Brian Mercer Award for Innovation from the Royal Society. He also received the Institute of Physics Innovation in Tribology Prize in 2008. He was awarded the Donald Julius Groen Prize in Tribology in 2020. He is a Chartered Engineer and Fellow of the IMechE.
In 2019 Roger was made a Royal Academy of Engineering Âé¶¹ÊÓÆµ Chair. This position is co-funded by the Rail Safety and Standards Board and will focus on management of low adhesion in the wheel/rail interface.
Roger has edited an essential guide to wheel/rail contacts issues, 'The Wheel/Rail Interface Handbook' which is published by Woodhead.
Roger is a member of the Leonardo Tribology Centre.
- Âé¶¹ÊÓÆµ interests
-
Roger's research interests are split into three areas: solving industrial wear problems; application and development of a novel ultrasonic technique for machine element contact analysis and design of engineering components and machines. The research themes are wide ranging, but the main focus is on:
Railway Engineering
- Wheel/rail contact tribology – including wear (wheel profile evolution), RCF, friction management (use of top of rail friction modifiers; grease lubrication and traction gels), isolation and links to effective train detection
- Rail infrastructure improvement – including laser cladding of rail to reduce wear/RCF; design and testing of insulated rail joints; overhead line wear testing
- Condition monitoring – including real-time measurement of the wheel/rail contact; force measurement and detection of loosening in bolted joints.
Human Interactions
- Fundamental characterization and modelling of skin friction including use of OCT to determine sub-surface skin strain
- Hand/object interactions – including kitchen equipment, sports equipment etc. and effects that wearing medical examination gloves has on dexterity, grip and tactile discrimination
- Human tissue interaction with medical devices including catheters
- Pedestrian slips and falls, particularly barefoot slips and characterisation of flooring performance
- Multi-scale modelling of skin to incorporate effects of moisture and temperature to optimise design of medical products that interface with skin.
- Publications
-
Books
Journal articles
2 B layers formed on AISI D2 steel. Indian Journal of Engineering and Materials Sciences, 22(2), 231-243.
Growth kinetics and mechanical properties of Fe
Chapters
Conference proceedings papers
Posters
Presentations
Other
Preprints
- Grants
-
- SBRI First of a Kind 2020 rail head cleaning project (July 2020 – Mar 2021) - £390,000
- Network Rail funded track cleaning (July 2020-Dec 2020) - £350,000
- Network Rail In2Track2 project on S&C friction modification (July 2020 – August 2021) - £80,000
- MCL TopTrack Project (Nov 2019 – Oct 2022) - £60,000
- Network Rail funded track trials of rail head cleaning (Sept 2019 – Jan 2020) - £199,000
- ViF funded PhD on rail fatigue and wear testing (Oct 2019-Sept 2022) - £60,000
- IIKE funded project to trial cryogenic track cleaning on a RHTT with NEXUS (Feb 2020 – Aug 2020) - £75,000
- RSSB funded Adhesion Forecasting project with the Met Office (Feb 2019 – July 2019) - £103,000
- EPSRC funded Centre to Centre Project (EP/S030476/1) with Leeds University (Oct 2019 – Sept 2023) - £670,000
- RSSB funded Adhesion Forecasting project using AI with Ikon Risk Consulting (Apr 2019 – Mar 2020) - £62,000
- ARN Innovation Fund Railhead Cleaning (September 2018 – December 2019) - £150,000
- ViF funded TriboWearTherm project (Sept 2018 – Aug 2021) - £50,000
- IIKE funded Railhead Cleaning project (Nov 2018 – Apr 2019) - £54,000
- FRA funded project on rail stress measurement (Jan 2019 – Jun 2020) (with R.S. Dwyer-Joyce and A. Gower) - £116,27
- RSSB funded Grant Scheme project with Network Rail to establish benchmarks tests for TOR products (Mar 2019 – Sept 2020) - £164,000
- RAEng/RSSB funded Âé¶¹ÊÓÆµ Chair (Mar 2019 – Feb 2024) - £225,000
- Network Rail sponsored iT-CDT project on rail grinding (Oct 2017 – Sept 2021) - £80,000
- RSSB funded project to investigate leaf chemistry effects on low adhesion (iT-CDT studentship) (Oct 2017 – Sept 2021) - £80,000
- RSSB funded project (T1149) to extend a low adhesion creep force model (LILAC) (Oct 2018 – Jul 2019) - £178,958
- Network Rail project on ballast laying machine wear plates (Nov 2019 – Feb 2020) - £27,000
- MDVSNPLUS skin tribology project (Jan 2019 – Apr 2019) - £25,000
- UKRRIN equipment grant (Jan 2018 – Dec 2021) - £1,300,000
- EPSRC funded Programme Grant – Friction: The Tribology Enigma (EP/R001766/1) (Sept 2017 – Aug 2022) - £3,400,000
- RSSB funded PhD on leaf layers (Oct 2015 – Sept 2018) - £18,000
- ViF sponsored project on Ballast testing - £17,857
- FRA funded project to model the effects of top of rail friction modifiers in the wheel/rail interface (Oct 2017 – Sept 2018) - £221,428
- RSSB funded project on optimised braking with dry-ice application (April 2017 – Oct 2018) - £500,000
- RSSB funded project on optimised braking with water application (April 2017 – Oct 2018) - £500,000
- RAEng Newton Fund Project (Colombia) (Mar 2016 – Feb 2018) - £30,000
- LB Foster research grant to top-up a PhD studentship to investigate friction modifiers used in the wheel/rail contact. (Oct 2015 – Sept 2018) - £21,000
- RSSB/FutureRailways funded project on optimised braking with water application (July 2015 – Dec 2015) - £93,000
- RSSB/FutureRailways funded project on optimised braking with dry-ice application (July 2015 – Dec 2015) - £85,000
- EPSRC funded project on laser cladding of the railhead (ALCHEMy) (June 2015-May 2018) - £900,000 (£450k at UoS/£450k at University of Bristol)
- RSSB/Network Rail funded project to develop a model to predict the effect of water in the wheel/rail contact (Apr 2015 – Mar 2016) - £250,000
- Network Rail funded project to investigate using ultrasound to determine longitudinal stress in a railhead (Jul 2014 – Dec 2015) - £30,000
- RSSB/RRUKA research grant to support an EPSRC iCASE Award to investigate low adhesion mechanisms in the wheel/rail contact (Oct 2014 – Mar 2018) - £23,000
- RSSB funded project to investigate lubrication of the wheel/rail contact (iT-CDT studentship) (Oct 2014 – Sept 2018) - £80,000
- Teaching activities
-
Professor Lewis has most recently taught tribology and sustainable design to fourth years. He led the development of a ground breaking interdisciplinary sustainable design project based on local live development sites.
This involves Civil and Structural Engineering, Architecture, Town and Regional Planning and Landscape. Professor Lewis has won three University of Sheffield Senate Teaching Awards for his innovation in teaching methods.