ABSTRACT
During the past two to three decades there has been an enormous increase in the use of dry bearings, gears, sliders, and other parts in general industrial, military, and aerospace applications. Solid lubricants appear to be the only choice in applications involving extreme pressure and temperature (400°C), nuclear radiation, abrasive and corrosive environments, and in textile and food industries where contamination by lubricants is intolerable [1,2]. A wide spectrum of materials based on metals, polymers, and ceramics is available from which to select base materials in these situations. Many handbooks and catalogues are available for such selection [3,4]. The collection of information, as shown in Table 1 [5], should assist in material selection depending on the requirements. However, since triboproperties are not intrinsic material properties they depend on many experimental/environmental parameters. Hence, no precise predictions about their actual performance are possible and the selected material pair will have to be tested in prototype before being used. Table 1 therefore provides guidelines only.
