Gaps in our knowledge of friction and wear

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Abstract
Friction is an important property of moving systems because it constitutes a wasteful dissipation of energy, while at the same time being a principal mechanism for controlling the motion. Systematic information on friction has been gathered by scientists and engineers over a period of three centuries. Wear is techologically even more important than friction, since it is the principal factor causing obsolescence of the material artifacts of our civilization, and is responsible for many types of failures. The scientific study of wear has been carried out only starting around 1950, having been long impeded by the existence of four forms of wear. Adhesive wear is the most universal of them, and its laws have been deduced from a macroscopic point of view. The main gaps in our knowledge are in regard to the fundamentals of friction and wear:‐ exactly how does the energy dissipation during sliding occur, and what is the mechanism for the formation of adhesive wear particles. Without this information, progress in friction and wear research, and in engineering practice, must continue to be by the time‐honored but inefficient ways of trial‐and‐error testing, followed by the compilation of semi‐empirical generalizations. Following this approach, considerable progress has been made. For example the influence of such concepts as crystal structure, compatibility and surface energy have been demonstrated. However there is no assurance that with presently available procedures, optimum materials and sliding conditions will be utilized.

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