Heat-assisted magnetic recording (HAMR) is on the magnetic recording industry’s roadmap of next generation recording technology. The high temperature writing condition creates several reliability challenges for the head disk interface (HDI). Material buildup, or so-called smear, that accumulates between the head and the media is one key challenge. Our previous studies found that the material transfer

The last 25 years have seen immense changes, both in the world generally and in scientific publishing. It is now hard to imagine that our original editorial responsibilities included managing filing cabinets full of manuscripts and making frequent trips to the post office! In this first Invited Viewpoint, we have invited ourselves to highlight some of the key breakthroughs that have been made on topics

The effectiveness of antiwear additives in laboratory tests is commonly evaluated using specimens made of AISI 52100 through-hardened bearing steel. However, many lubricated machine components are made of steels with significantly different material compositions, which raises an important practical question of whether the performance of antiwear additives with these other steel types is different from

A correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11249-021-01447-5

Wear corrosion is a significant problem impacting the lifetime of steel pipes used in hydraulic fracturing operations. To improve the lifetime of these steel pipes, the present work examines the effect and optimization of three propriety corrosion inhibitors (Dynarate, DWP, and CalGuard), as well as their concentration, on the tribocorrosion behavior of AISI 4715 steels used to carry fracking liquid

The effect of relative humidity on the decomposition reaction of zinc dialkyldithiophosphate (ZDDP) additive under boundary lubrication regime has been investigated using Raman spectroscopy and atomic force microscopy (AFM). The ZDDP tribofilms were formed using the pin-on-disc tribometer at 30 and 90% relative humidity, which was controlled using a custom-made humid chamber. The results suggest that

Fe-based amorphous coatings have promising applications in the field of surface protection. However, due to their brittle characteristics, delamination has become the most common wear mechanism of the coating. In present study, influences of structural relaxation and crystallization on microstructure, hardness and dry-sliding tribological behavior of the coatings are investigated. The results indicate

In order to clarify the mechanism of polishing of double diamond abrasive particles, in this study, the mechanism of material removal and the evolution of single crystal Si workpiece surface under the three-body polishing condition were investigated. The effect of the depth of polishing and the transverse/longitudinal spacing of the double abrasive grains on the three-body polishing were examined.

To reduce friction, especially under high-temperature conditions, an oil-soluble polymeric friction modifier (polymeric FM) with a methacrylate backbone and hydroxyl groups has been developed. It was designed to have high adsorption performance and to increase in size when dissolved in base oil as the temperature is increased. To investigate the temperature dependence of the structural and tribological

This paper examines the influence of steel surface composition on antiwear tribofilm formation by ion-implanting typical steel alloying elements, Ni, Mo, Cr, V and W, into AISI 52100 bearing steel surfaces. Such implantation changes the chemical composition of the steel surface but has relatively little effect on its mechanical properties or topography. The behaviour of zinc dialkyldithiophosphate

The lubrication performance of a bearing is determined by low friction and high load carrying capacity, which can be theoretically facilitated by partial-slip or heterogeneous-slip surface design. In the study, we numerically analysed a two-dimensional lubricated contact of a stationary slip slider surface and a moving non-slip plane by using the critical shear stress model. The proliferation of slip

Articular cartilage maintains phenomenally low friction and strains in intact joints during articulation, yet after a century of study, the mechanisms underpinning cartilage’s in vivo functions remain uncertain. We recently re-introduced a unique benchtop testing system, the convergent stationary contact area (cSCA), to investigate frictions and strains in cartilage explants; the cSCA differs from

In this study, grey cast iron disc brake rotors are refurbished by adding a surface layer through laser cladding. Current methods to deal with replaced rotors mainly include remelting, with a minority fraction disposed in landfill. Both approaches result in a huge waste of resources and an increase in CO2 footprint. From a sustainable point of view, this study aims to evaluate the feasibility of refurbishing

This paper investigated the mechanism of enhancing the mechanical and tribological properties of nitrile rubber (NBR) via the addition of nano-SiO2 on the molecular scale. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations were performed on molecular structure models of pure NBR, NBR/SiO2, and three-layer friction pairs. The results showed that the hydrogen bonds and interfacial interaction between nano-SiO2 and

Coated abrasives (sandpaper) are imperative in various industrial areas, including the automotive and the metal industry. An exact outcome is often highly appreciated in abrasion processes, which means that the wear process must be precisely controlled. In this paper, a new method for analyzing the grinding process of coated abrasives is proposed. In order to study the grinding properties of sandpaper

Molecular dynamics simulations are used to obtain mode I and mode II fracture energies and cohesive laws for bulk epoxy and interfaces formed between epoxy and single-layer graphene (SLG), multilayer graphene (MLG), and multilayer graphene oxide (MLGO). The elastic moduli and ultimate tensile and shear strengths of epoxy–graphene interfaces are calculated from uniaxial tension and simple shear loadings

Adhesion and, its interplay with friction, is central in several engineering applications involving soft contacts. Recently, there has been an incredible push towards a better understanding on how the apparent contact area evolves when a shear load is applied to an adhesive soft contact, both experimentally and theoretically. Although soft materials are well-known to exhibit rate-dependent properties

The recently discovered and prepared honeycomb borophene is one of the many forms of borophene. For the first time, we studied the tribological properties of honeycomb borophene based on first principles and found that it has excellent tribological performance. As a two-dimensional material, honeycomb borophene has potential applications in the field of tribology. Correspondingly, we studied interlaminar

A new model to accurately obtain the contact stiffness of the mechanical joint surface is established, which satisfies the continuous smooth contact characteristics of the asperity and also considers the influence of the asperity interaction. In order to satisfy the continuous and smooth contact characteristics of the asperity, the interpolation interval of the Hermite polynomial function is improved

On the purpose of improving the surface wettability and tribological properties of Ti6Al4V alloy for artificial joints, we designed a novel ‘soft (hydrogel layer)–hard (porous Ti6Al4V alloy substrate)’ structure, which was fabricated by laser texturing, surface dopamine modification and poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) hydrogel casting. Characterization results revealed that the PVA hydrogel layer could be

Numerous tribological contacts worldwide rely on adequate lubrication quality for proper functionality. Despite this, there is no existing approach to accurately predict the state of lubrication. The default model since introduced in the 1960s—the \(\Lambda\)-ratio, defined as the oil film thickness over the surface roughness height—is unpredictable and may yield erroneous results. Here, we put forward

A pin-on-disk tribometer for micro-scale applications is presented in this paper. The tribometer consists of a stationary mm-scale pin and a rotating disk. Friction and lubrication film thickness are measured by a laser position detector and a laser displacement sensor. Using this tribometer, hydrodynamic tests have been carried out with the specimens fully submerged in a lubricant. Results suggest

Tribofilm growth, friction and wear behaviour are not well understood for non-ferrous alloys under lubricated contacts in the presence of combination of zinc dialkyl dithiophosphates (ZDDPs) and molybdenum dithiocarbamate (MoDTC) lubricant additives. This study is focused on the growth of tribofilms and tribological properties monitored in situ using an atomic force microscopy (AFM)-based approach

We study the friction force during lubricated sliding of a rigid cylindrical indenter against a viscoelastic substrate in the iso-viscous visco-elasto-hydrodynamic lubrication (VEHL) regime. The substrate is represented by a foundation model. The solution is controlled by three dimensionless parameters. The first of these, λ, measures the time for the indenter to move one contact zone relative to the

The surface tribological chemistry of acetic acid on copper is studied using an ultrahigh vacuum tribometer, supplemented by first-principles density functional theory calculations of the surface structure and reaction pathways. Acetic acid forms η2-acetate species on bridge sites at room temperature as identified by reflection–absorption infrared spectroscopy. Rubbing the surface with a tungsten carbide

In this study, we investigate the effects of thermal fluctuations on the generalized Johnson–Kendall–Roberts (JKR) model. We show that the distribution of pull-off forces in this model is similar to that of the Bradley model, and is also consistent with the experiment result observed in Wierez-Kien et al. (Nanotechnology 29(15):155704 2018). Increasing temperature leads to a broadening of the distribution

The original version of this article unfortunately contained a formatting mistake in tables and figures placement.

The prediction of friction under elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) conditions remains one of the most important and controversial areas of tribology. This is mostly because the pressure and shear rate conditions inside EHL contacts are particularly severe, which complicates experimental design. Over the last decade, molecular dynamics (MD) simulation has played an increasingly significant role in

Commercial high-speed train friction blocks with a hole in the middle of the surface and perforated blocks filled with additive materials are introduced in drag brake experiments conducted on a customized small-scaled braking dynamometer. These additive materials include Cu-based powder metallurgy material, composite material, and a Mn–Cu damping alloy. The results indicate that the filling materials

We study the frictional response of water-lubricated gold electrodes subject to an electrostatic potential difference using molecular dynamics simulations. Contrary to previous studies on electrotunable lubrication that were carried out by fixing the charges, our simulations keep electrodes at fixed electrostatic potential using a variable charge method. For pure water and NaCl solutions, viscosity

Sliding wear tests of a titanium-matrix composite (TMC) against M35 steel were performed at room temperature. To improve the wear performance of the TMC, an attempt was made to induce a protective tribofilm by artificially supplying nanoscale materials, viz. multilayer graphene (MLG), Fe2O3, and their composite and mixture, onto the sliding tracks. Irrespective of the load, MLG or Fe2O3 additives could

Synthetic MSH can solve the shortcomings of natural, self-repairing serpentine materials, but its tribological properties are not ideal. Herein, Ni was selected as an accelerant to prepare MSH/Ni composite powder to obtain better friction performance. The tribological performance of MSH/Ni was investigated using ball-disk wear tests, and the worn surfaces were characterized by SEM, EDS, WLI, and XPS

The objective of this study was to evaluate the influence of adhesive layer thickness on wear damage of the bonded interface between enamel and composite inlays using self-adhesive resin cement. Sixty bonded interface samples consisting of four different adhesive layer thicknesses (10 ± 10, 50 ± 10, 100 ± 10 and 150 ± 10 μm) were prepared from resin composite (Tetric N Ceram Bulk Fill; Ivoclar Vivadent