Tribology in Vehicles

Dear Colleagues,

Tribology exists everywhere in the world and is becoming ever more critical as vehicles of all classes are required to be faster, quieter and more efficient. To meet the continuous increase in the severity of government regulations, new vehicles are required to have better performance in terms of energy saving, pollution, NVH (noise, vibration and harshness) and mechanical efficiency. Definitely hybrid vehicles (HEVs) and pure electric vehicles (EVs) will become dominate in the future. However, it is still the case that by 2040 vehicles equipped with internal combustion engines may well account for a significant proportion of the global annual sales of passenger and commercial vehicles so that further work on the efficiencies of IC engines is still relevant. Combustion engines burning hydrogen may well find applications in off-road, heavy duty or agricultural vehicles. Therefore, new tribological problems associated with these combustion engines are needed to be solved.

Although great achievements have been made on the energy efficiency and performance of batteries and electric powertrains, there is still much work to do on the design of novel motors, bearings, brushes/slip-ring assembly, brakes, transmissions, lubricants and lubrication systems in hybrid or pure electric vehicles including road, rail, air, and water vehicles (ships). In addition, the friction and wear problems associated with both road and rail vehicles, particularly high-speed trains—for example interactions between the tyre and the pavement or wheel and rail—continue to demand attention from tribologists and vehicle manufactures. Furthermore, vehicle pollution is closely related to tribology problems, not only engine emissions but vehicle noise at both low and high frequencies, and braking and tyre particle generation: all of these problems require innovative solutions involving elements of tribology.

Encouraged by the Editorial Office of Lubricants, we are launching a Special Issue on “Tribology in Vehicles” aiming to cover the latest developments concerned with the tribological and dynamical performance of all kinds of vehicles coupled with high-speeds, high-loads, novel materials, electrical drives and bio-inspired designs from both academic and industrial researchers working on vehicular tribological innovations. We hope that the contents of the Special Issue will contain a spread of multi-disciplined opportunities and challenges relating to vehicle tribology, which will be valuable to engineers and technologists developing efficient, green and reliable systems for modern vehicles of all classes.

Prof. Dr. Shuwen Wang
Prof. Dr. John Williams
Prof. Dr. David Charles Barton
Dr. Chunxing Gu
Guest Editors

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• friction and wear
• lubrication
• tire-road contacts
• wheel-rail systems
• braking systems
• novel frictional surfaces
• bio-inspired design
• braking emission
• frictional noise and vibration