Microscale Materials Tribology

Dear Colleagues,

Ever since Bowden and Tabors’ seminal contributions in the 1950s, it has been understood that friction is a direct function of the plasticity in the interacting metals. As a consequence, the microstructure of the material on the one hand essentially determines the tribological performance and the wear resistance, and on the other hand the microstructure is severely evolving into tribological layers as a function of the applied friction. This interdependence of friction and microstructure holds in the presence and absence of lubricants. In order to focus the contributions, this issue will mainly address tribology in dry lubrication.

In recent years, materials tribology experiments often use advanced electron microscopy and chemical analysis to investigate the elementary mechanisms behind several of these tribologically induced microstructural mechanisms. At the same time, computational materials science improved the accuracy of the interacting bodies and the interatomic potential as well as increased the system size and similarity to experimental conditions. The combination of both research areas—experiments and simulations—allowed to further the understanding of tribology induced subsurface microstructure evolution. However, the origin and evolution of these distinct subsurface layers, as well as other atomistic to macroscale mechanisms remain elusive. Only the combination of experimental and numerical work will provide the knowledge that will allow for a strategic tailoring of tribologically loaded metals.

This Special Issue therefore brings together experimental and computational efforts concentrating on the fundamentals of materials tribology, focusing on materials science-based mechanisms. These mechanisms are either revealed by computing tribological contacts, e.g., through Molecular Dynamics, Dislocation Dynamics Modeling or Continuum Simulations; or by experimentally observing the mechanical and chemical evolution of the subsurface microstructure during metals friction and wear in dry lubrication.

Dr. Christian Greiner
Dr. Steffen Brinkmann
Guest Editors

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• Friction
• Wear
• Materials tribology
• Microstructure evolution
• Computational tribology
• Electron microscopy