HEF from research to industry
The Institut de Recherche en Ingénierie des Surfaces (IREIS) is the HEF surface engineering research institute.
IREIS, at the heart of HEF’s innovation initiatives, takes on the challenges of today’s world and responds to the issues of tomorrow in the field of surface materials engineering by carrying out research and development studies on behalf of third parties and in partnership with the academic and industrial world.
IREIS works on issues that have a profound influence on society: decarbonization of industry, zero CO2 emissions mobility, energy efficiency, and re-industrialization. Thus, IREIS contributes to innovation, which is one of the primary factors for companies’ growth and competitiveness.
Through these studies, IREIS improves the properties of surfaces, provides surfaces with additional functions, and develops new processes and technologies for surface treatment and coating.
These surface engineering activities cover the fields of tribology, thin-layer deposition via vacuum technologies, laser surface structuring, diffusion layers, functionalized powders, coatings for photonics, and hydrogen technologies.
A key element for the success of an innovation initiative is the fact that the studies carried out at IREIS range from laboratory scale to industrial scale. This is accomplished by mobilizing diverse R&D and testing platforms located in St-Etienne and Andrézieux-Bouthéon. These include major facilities for vacuum deposition, laser texturing (MANUTECH-USD), engine tribology (ICE-T), and tribology industrial studies.
Research and development in the fields of tribology and surface materials engineering
Through studies and tests conducted with HEF customers and partners, IREIS improves the properties of surfaces, provides surfaces with new functions, and develops new coating processes and technologies to overcome the following challenges in particular:
• Decarbonization of industry, sustainable development, and circular economy processes
• Mobility: improving energy efficiency through to zero-emission vehicles
• Development of advanced manufacturing processes, new multifunctional materials, and complex surface structuring.
As a contract research organization (Structure de Recherche sous Contrat (SRC)), IREIS carries out a significant proportion of its activities on behalf of external companies, always with the goal of contributing its surface materials engineering expertise. IREIS has also been approved by the French Ministry of Research as a research service provider and is eligible for research tax credit (crédit d’impôt recherche (CIR)).
Tribology research and testing platforms
Engine platform:
The engine platform focuses on improving the energy efficiency of engines through tribology, from laboratory-scale models and sub-systems to single-cylinder test benches.
Industrial engineering platform:
The industrial test platform includes a fleet of test benches. These range from test benches for simple standardized tests to test benches for tests with conditions closer to those of the industrial world:
• With specific test environments such as temperature (up to 700°C), cryogenics, vacuum, particles, various fluids, pressurized water
• By simulating specific wear conditions such as fretting, fretting corrosion, erosion, cantilevered joints, and fatigue
