International audienceThis work is part of a European sponsored project named MECHEX (GRD2-2000-30035) which aims at providing a new insight and data about the ignition hazard induced by mechanical contacts classically termed as "grinding", "friction" and "impact" so that some sort of classification of mechanical equipments against this specific hazard could be issued. "Friction" and "grinding" might be understood as continuous mechanical solicitation whereas "impact" would be referred to as an instantaneous action such as that of a flying object striking freely on a fixed target. Within that scope, we undertook a detailed physical analysis of possible ignition mechanisms on the basis of precise measurements of hot spots, temperatures and fragments and tried to link them to the thermomechanical properties of the contacting bodies
