ABSTRACT
Plastics are very interesting materials in the construction of machines, in particular miniature mechanisms. They are used in manufacturing elements of tribosystems, and in the case of miniature mechanisms often the whole mechanism is produced by injection molding, which is very cheap. Two factors have contributed to the very rapid growth in plastic usage: facility of being able to shape plastics under mild temperature conditions and high resistance of these materials to chemical attack. Plastics are useful in mechanical applications as the elements can reduce vibrational effects and the tribological behavior is easy to control by selecting and combining different plastic materials between them or with other materials such as metals (steel) and ceramics.
