Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed a coating composed of carbon nanotubes that imparts superlubricity to sliding parts. It reduces the friction of steel rubbing on steel at least a hundredfold. A paper on the coating is published in the journal Materials Today Nano.... Read more →

A Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) team has developed a mechanical testing device to analyze fluids and lubricants formulated for electric vehicles. The team modified a commercial tribology testing device to give it the capability to evaluate the impact of electric currents in fluids, measuring the wear and friction on the... Read more →

Researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) recently showed that wear occurs at the first contact and always takes place at the same point of the material. Their findings can help develop optimized materials and reduce consumption of energy and raw materials. The researchers presented results of two studies... Read more →

Freudenberg-NOK Sealing Technologies (Freudenberg-NOK) has won its first major order for its new generation of dry gas-lubricated automotive seals—a first in the automotive market. The frictionless Levitex seals, a subject of the company’s research for years, will go into an engine for a global platform in 2017. The new seals... Read more →

Argonne scientists have used the Mira supercomputer to identify and to improve a new mechanism for eliminating friction, which fed into the development of a hybrid material that exhibited superlubricity—a state in which friction essentially disappears—at the macroscale—i.e., at engineering scale—for the first time. A paper on their work was... Read more →

Fraunhofer researchers have developed a laser arc method with which layers of carbon almost as hard as diamond can be applied on an industrial scale at high coating rates and with high thicknesses. Applying such carbon coatings to engine components such as piston rings and pins contributes to lowering fuel... Read more →

One of the main modern antiwear lubricant additives is zinc dialkyldithiophosphate (ZDDP)—widely used in automotive lubricants—which forms crucial antiwear tribofilms at sliding interfaces. However, despite its importance in prolonging machinery life and reducing energy use, the mechanisms governing its tribofilm growth are not well-understood. This limits the development of replacements... Read more →

Researchers at Purdue University have shown that adding ultra-smooth submicrometer carbon spheres to motor oil can reduce friction and wear typically seen in engines by up to 25%. The researchers also have shown how to potentially mass-produce the spheres, making them hundreds of times faster than previously possible using ultrasound... Read more →

Researchers at Japan’s National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) have developed a highly efficient method for developing friction materials with a desired frictional property. Using the new method, it would be possible to find the appropriate crystal preferred orientation for coatings with the desired value of the coefficient of friction.... Read more →