Exploring Wear and Friction Mechanisms in Tribological Coatings and Surface Textures

A special issue of Coatings (ISSN 2079-6412). This special issue belongs to the section "Tribology".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 15 March 2026 | Viewed by 1172

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
College of Mechanical and Electronic Engineering, Shandong University of Science and Technology, Qingdao 266590, China
Interests: intelligent and high-performance manufacturing; design and manufacturing of functional surface; machined surface integrity
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
College of Transportation, Shandong University of Science and Technology, Qingdao 266590, China
Interests: friction and wear behaviors; brake wear particle emissions; brake materials; brake noise
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Key Laboratory of High Efficiency and Clean Mechanical Manufacture of Ministry of Education, Key National Demonstration Center for Experimental Mechanical Engineering Education, Shandong University, Jinan 250061, China
Interests: electrochemical polishing; niti shape memory alloy; corrosion resistance; ceramic cutting tool; multiscale textures

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
College of Mechanical and Electronic Engineering, Shandong University of Science and Technology, Qingdao 266590, China
Interests: laser additive manufacturing; additive and subtractive composite manufacturing; numerical simulation and equipment intelligence; wear and corrosion protection

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Tribological coatings and surface textures are core technologies for enhancing wear resistance and reducing frictional losses, with critical applications in aerospace, energy equipment, precision manufacturing, and high-end agricultural machinery. However, under complex operating conditions, challenges remain in understanding the multiscale coupling effects of coating–texture failure mechanisms and predicting long-term performance.

This Special Issue focuses on "Exploring Wear and Friction Mechanisms in Tribological Coatings and Surface Textures", aiming to consolidate interdisciplinary research to address key challenges:

  • Interface failure mechanisms and dynamic lubrication behavior in nano/micro-structured coatings;
  • Effectiveness evaluation of surface textures (dimples, grooves, bio-inspired hierarchical structures) in friction and drag reduction;
  • Synergistic wear-fatigue damage evolution under multiphysics (thermo–mechano–chemical) coupling;
  • Machine learning and multiscale modeling for performance prediction and optimization.

We encourage studies integrating advanced characterization techniques (e.g., in-situ tribometry, 3D profilometry) and innovative manufacturing processes (e.g., laser texturing, magnetron-sputtered coatings). Contributions should advance emerging technologies such as smart responsive coatings and self-healing surface textures, ultimately providing high-reliability surface engineering solutions for industrial applications.

Dr. Weimin Huang
Dr. Long Wei
Dr. Guijie Wang
Dr. Guosong Zhang
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • tribological coatings
  • surface textures
  • wear mechanisms
  • multiphysics coupling
  • smart surfaces

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Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

17 pages, 6364 KB  
Article
A Vision-Based Approach for Precise Wear Evaluation of Abrasive Belts with Irregular Morphology in Flexible Grinding
by Lijuan Ren, Weijian Yan, Nina Wang, Wanjing Pang and Guangpeng Zhang
Coatings 2025, 15(11), 1257; https://doi.org/10.3390/coatings15111257 - 31 Oct 2025
Viewed by 384
Abstract
Abrasive belt wear has an important impact on the dimensional accuracy and surface quality of parts. Accurate quantitative measurement of abrasive belt wear is an important basis for optimizing grinding process parameters, but also a very challenging task for abrasive belts with randomly [...] Read more.
Abrasive belt wear has an important impact on the dimensional accuracy and surface quality of parts. Accurate quantitative measurement of abrasive belt wear is an important basis for optimizing grinding process parameters, but also a very challenging task for abrasive belts with randomly distributed abrasive particles. In this paper, a quantitative method of determining wear state based on the life cycle surface images of the abrasive belt is proposed to evaluate its material removal ability in the grinding process. For blunted abrasive particles with extremely irregular shapes, TransUNet with a hybrid encoding of a CNN and transformer is adopted to obtain strong representation of complex features and high-precision segmentation boundaries. Three other U-net-based semantic segmentation networks are compared to prove the effectiveness of the trained TransUNet model. The number and area of blunted abrasive particles were calculated by connected domain and statistical methods. The proportion of worn abrasive particles and the wear area ratio when the service life of the abrasive belt is exhausted are about 74.29% and 3.06%, respectively. Full article
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15 pages, 2495 KB  
Article
The Effect of Cr Cathode Arc Current on the Wear Resistance of Cr/(Zr,Cr)N/(Zr,Cr,Al)N Coatings on 7050 Aluminum Alloy
by Peiyu He, Tao He, Xiangyang Du, Alexey Vereschaka, Catherine Sotova, Jian Li, Yang Ding, Kang Chen and Yuqi Wang
Coatings 2025, 15(9), 1082; https://doi.org/10.3390/coatings15091082 - 15 Sep 2025
Viewed by 567
Abstract
The application of 7050 aluminum alloy in high-friction environments is limited due to its insufficient surface wear resistance. This study aims to enhance its wear resistance by depositing Cr/(Zr,Cr)N/(Zr,Cr,Al)N multilayer composite coatings using filtered cathodic vacuum arc deposition (FCVAD) technology under different Cr [...] Read more.
The application of 7050 aluminum alloy in high-friction environments is limited due to its insufficient surface wear resistance. This study aims to enhance its wear resistance by depositing Cr/(Zr,Cr)N/(Zr,Cr,Al)N multilayer composite coatings using filtered cathodic vacuum arc deposition (FCVAD) technology under different Cr cathode arc currents (65A, 85A, 105A, 125A). Coatings were characterized by SEM, EDS, XRD, nanoindentation, and reciprocating wear testing. Results show that increasing arc current from 65 A to 125 A led to grain coarsening, reduced Zr content, and increased Cr-rich microdroplets. Nanoindentation results indicated that the coating prepared under a 65 A current exhibited the best hardness (13.03 GPa) and elastic modulus (242.87 GPa), which is mainly attributed to the formation of fine grains and fewer surface defects under low current conditions. Reciprocating wear tests showed that the wear resistance of all coating samples was superior to that of the uncoated 7050 aluminum alloy substrate. At an arc current of 85 A, the best wear resistance was observed, combining a low wear rate (5.31 × 10−5 mm3) with good mechanical strength (hardness of 8.54 GPa). This study revealed the regulatory mechanism of Cr cathode arc current on the microstructure and performance of Cr/(Zr,Cr)N/(Zr,Cr,Al)N multi-layer composite coatings, providing a theoretical basis and experimental support for optimizing coating process parameters to enhance the wear resistance of aluminum alloy surfaces. Full article
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