Experimental Methods in Tribology

Citation

Friedrich, K. and Rosso, P. (2005), "Experimental Methods in Tribology", Industrial Lubrication and Tribology, Vol. 57 No. 5, pp. 213-213. https://doi.org/10.1108/00368790510614208

This book is without any doubt another masterpiece in the Tribology Series of Elsevier. The authors not only dedicated it to newcomers, but it is also an excellent work of reference for experienced specialists. The structure of the book is brilliant since the sequence of the 11 chapters is meaningfully selected and totally clear and comprehensive to the reader. Every chapter closes with a helpful summary and plenty of references, providing the reader the opportunity to consult certain issues in more detail. The amount and the quality of the illustrations are in perfect balance and contribute to the reader‐friendly and easy‐understandable explanations of complicated tribological matters. With regard to the examples and results presented, the book can be addressed to students as well as to application oriented engineers. The competence of the authors in the field of tribology is mirrored in the whole content of the book, and especially those people, dealing with wear testing and characterisation methods in tribology, will highly appreciate the existence of this book.

Similar to other textbooks, Chapter 1 of this book starts with an introduction, looking into the history of tribology. Also at the beginning, the authors refer to the complexity of tribological phenomena and discuss the significance and need of tribological experimentation. In Chapter 2, mainly the operating parameters to characterise real tribological contacts are described, which are needed to simulate wear and friction. The careful consideration of these parameters leads to the selection of an appropriate tribometer. Different tribometers for different purposes are introduced and explained in Chapter 3, one of the core‐chapters in this book. It starts with the basic features of a tribometer, followed by detailed set‐up demonstrations of, e.g. sliding, erosion, abrasion up to special purpose tribometers such as fretting, scratching or impact wear studies. The apparatuses, the equipment needed and the test principles are described in separate sections. In this context, also elevated temperatures, vacuum, corrosion and lubrication mechanisms are considered and discussed. The actual measurement techniques are outlined in Chapter 4, which examines the measurements of friction coefficient (e.g. force and roughness measurements), wear (e.g. weight loss and profilometry) and indirect measurements techniques (e.g. acoustic, thermal or heat emission). A bonus in this section is the listing of advantages and disadvantages of the selected measurement techniques. The relatively short Chapter 5 highlights the methods to control and warrant a stable test environment. It explicitly refers to the dramatic influence of parameters like temperature, humidity and oxygen concentration on the accuracy of the results of wear tests. Therefore, it is essential to use adequate methods to determine these parameters and report them together with the collected wear results. Chapter 6, “Characterisation of test specimens”, classifies, first of all, different material categories and the necessary sample characteristics needed for the sample description, respectively. The most established measurement and analysis techniques are exemplified and several exercise oriented results are used for demonstration. Not depending on the type of investigation, a diligent characterisation of the test specimens is mandatory and has to be considered critically in order to achieve meaningful and comparable test results. Chapter 7 is mainly subjected to practical things, showing the tricks and tips of the execution of the tests and additional recommendations on the sample preparation.

The very important Chapters 8, 9 and 10 build the heart of this book dealing to a great extent with the analyses of the experiments. Chapter 8 focuses on microscopic and spectroscopic methods as a tool to qualify the structure and surfaces of the materials investigated. Here, it is quite helpful and convenient for the readers, that the authors depicted and described the very sophisticated techniques such as SEM, TEM, AFM, LFM, SNOM or XPS. Regarding Chapter 9, it first scales the significance of the lubricant parameters to the tribological function, and further it describes the individual measurement methods to determine those characteristics. Supplementary to the descriptive general information, for example, a table is provided discussing the quality of data obtained when different types of viscometry are used. These remarkable details attract enormous attention and make this book outstanding. The second part of Chapter 9 is devoted to lubricant oxidation tests, which are again illustrated very well. In Chapter 10, the importance of the analysis of the wear particles is emphasised, and different analytical as well as computational approaches are discussed. Wear particle analysis can be carried out by means of chemical analysis (e.g. spectrographic oil analysis), ferrography, or the determination of the worn particle's shape by image analysis. All these techniques are described in this chapter, and moreover, the strong current research interest in this field is brought up and documented by many recent publications.

Finally, Chapter 11 talks about the simulation of wear and friction experiments and the statistical representation of wear data. The benefits and limitations of modelling, also with regard to industrial testing, are briefly presented.

In conclusion, this book reveals the fundamentals of experimental methods in tribology on the one hand, and it challenges the problems and solutions in reality, on the other.