EME 4353 Advanced Engineering Materials

Lecture 8 :
Introduction to Tribology

PowerPoint® Slides
by Dr Lai MK
 Learning Objectives

1. To achieve an understanding of tribology and its

importance.
2. To gain knowledge of the fundamentals of friction.
3. To gain knowledge of the types of wear

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 Introduction

1. To describe the “science and technology of interacting

surfaces in relative motion and related practices”
 Involves friction, wear and lubrication

2. Example: In automobiles,
a) Friction between tires and road essential for
automobiles to move around
b) Friction between break pads and rotors stop the
vehicles

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 FRICTION

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 Surface Roughness Measurement

1. Mechanical Stylus Method

2. Optical Methods
• Specular Reflection
• Scattering
• Optical Interference
3. Scanning Probe Microscopy (SPM) – STM and AFM
4. Fluid Methods
5. Electrical Methods
6. Electron Microscopy Methods

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 Mechanical Stylus Method
1. It amplifies and records the vertical motions of a stylus displaced
under a constant load and speed by the surface to be measured.

2. The stylus arm is loaded against the sample and either the stylus or
sample is scanned. Styli are made of diamond with a sharp tip
generally a cone with 60° or 90° included angle.

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 Optical Methods
1. Example: Specular Reflection, Scattering, Optical Interference

2. In Optical Interference, the reflected beams from two parallel plates

placed normal to the incident beam interfere and result in the
formation of fringes. The fringes spacing is a function of the
spacing of the two plates. If one of the plate is reference and
another is the rough surface, fringe spacing can be related to the
surface roughness.

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 Atomic Force Microscopy

A very sharp tip mounted on a very flexible cantilever beam is scanned

on the sample surface at a constant normal load to produce very high-
resolution, 3-D images of the sample surface. Either the tip or the
sample can be canned. AFM measures ultra-small forces (less than 1
nN) present between the AFM tip surface and a sample surface.

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 Friction
1. Friction is the resistance to motion when one solid body moves
over another with which it is in contact.

2. There are two types of friction:

• Dry friction or “Coulomb” friction exists in dry contacts

• Fluid friction exists between adjacent layers in a fluid moving

at different velocities relative to each other as in fluid film
bearings.

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 Contact between two surfaces

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 Friction of Materials
Friction of Metals and Alloys

1. Clean metal and alloy surfaces exhibit high adhesion and

consequently high friction and wear. Slight contamination mitigates
contact and reduce friction and wear.

1. Environment has significant influence, e.g. oxide films produced

when exposed to air may reduce friction.

2. The increase in sliding velocity, contact pressure, and temperature

result in metal softening which increases contact area but reduces
interfacial shear strength.

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 Friction of Ceramics

1. These have moderate friction but very low wear.

2. Ceramics exhibit high mechanical strength, do not lose much

mechanical strength or oxidize readily at elevated temperatures
and are resistant to corrosive environments
– used in extreme environment conditions, such as high load,
high speeds, high temperatures and corrosive environments

3. Fracture toughness of ceramics is an important property in friction

of ceramics. Coefficient of friction generally decreases with an
increase of fracture toughness.

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 Friction of Polymers

1. The coefficient of friction of selected polymers (plastics and

elastomers) sliding against themselves or against metals or
ceramics range from 0.15 to 0.6, except for PTFE which exhibit
very low friction (~0.05) comparable to conventional solid
lubricants.
• Polymers nominally exhibit moderate wear.

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 WEAR

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 Wear

1. Surface damage or removal of material from one or both of two

surfaces in motion

2. Major categories of wear:

a) Adhesion – requires adhesion of one surface to another
b) Abrasion – requires hard, sharp surfaces imposed on softer
surfaces

3. In well-designed tribological systems, removal of material is a slow

process but is steady and continuous

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 Adhesive wear

1. Occurs when two solid bodies are in sliding contact, lubricated or

not.
2. Adhesion occurs at the asperity contacts at the interface
3. These contacts are sheared by sliding  detachment of a fragment
from one surface and attachment to the other surface

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 Abrasive wear

1. Occurs when asperities of rough, hard surfaces (two body) or hard

particles (three body) slide on a softer surface, damaging the
interface

2. Scratching is observed as a series of grooves parallel to direction

of sliding

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 Lubrication

1. Friction cannot be avoided, only reduced through lubrication, solid

or fluid lubricants

2. Solid lubricants: any material used on a surface to provide

protection from damage during relative movement, i.e. bearings
and thin film (polymer)

3. Liquid lubrications: prevents solid-solid contact i.e. oil, grease

 Provide very low friction and negligible wear

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