Current and Future Trends in Tribological Research: Fundamentals and Applications–The 10th Anniversary of Lubricants

Dear Colleagues,

We have recently received the first Impact Factor of 3.584 for Lubricants. This is a significant achievement, thanks to the Editorial Board and our valued authors and reviewers. We have decided to mark this occasion and build on the journal’s achievement in order for Lubricants to reach even higher accolades in IF and other metrics of performance and esteem. Therefore, we have planned this very Special Featured Issue to highlight, present, and discuss “Current and future trends in tribological research: fundamentals and applications”. This occasion also coincides with the 10th anniversary of the journal which had its inaugural issue in 2013. In editing this Special Issue, I will be aided by two of my long-term research collaborators; Dr. Patricia Johns-Rahnejat of University of Central Lancashire, UK, and Dr. Ramin Rahmani of Loughborough University, UK. I am sure that with their help and support of our prestigious expert and active Editorial Board, this Special Issue will be a momentous achievement for Lubricants and direction of future tribological research.

I am sure that we will note a multi-faceted future for research in many aspects of tribology. One important current and future endeavour will be the ultimate aim of achieving net zero emissions. This would entail significant new areas of tribological research to mitigate frictional and thermal losses, as well as wear of contacting surfaces, degradation, dilution, and loss of function of lubricants. We are already seeing the emergence of new advances in lubricant physical chemistry and rheology, advanced low friction coatings and self-lubricating surfaces, as well as optimisation of surface-lubricant systems (physio-chemical and chemo-mechanical interactions) according to the widely-varying operating applications and conditions. Advanced surface coatings and engineered surfaces, such as texturing, will also be pursued. A greater degree of embedded intelligence will be sought for tribological systems with the use of active sensor technology, and application of actuators for self-organising contact conjunctions to meet in situ transient conditions (Active Tribology: tribotronics). This approach will be extended through greater use of knowledge-based expert systems and Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Tribology will also be affected and play a key role as alternative sources of clean energy fully or partially replace hydrocarbons, as well as molecular formulation of lubricants pertaining to green tribology. The alternative sources of energy would include electric propulsion systems as in hybrid and fully electric vehicles, fuel-cells, dual-fuel combustion engines, particularly using hydrogen or ethanol or other fuels. The use of these alternatives to traditional hydrocarbon-based fuels would entail much investigation into their effects upon operational integrity, as well as the environment. This large area of future research would include all forms of power generation and propulsion in many sectors of economy from transport (road, off-road, haulage, marine and aerospace) to construction, power generation, to name but a few. Tribology in cryogenic conditions, such as in space will also become progressively more commonplace.

Tribology research will also play a key role in all aspects of health care. There will be continuation, extension and advances in the traditional biotribology of endo-articular joints with arthroplasty. There will also be other issues, such as interaction of stents with artherosclerotic plaque and contact of blood (haemodynamics) in coronary artery bypass grafts. In the biotribological fields of investigation, other areas of research will receive increasing attention, such as tribology of skin with multi-layered (dermis, epidermis, and hypodermis) poroelasticity and replacement grafts and development of hydrogels. There is also the whole multi-physics area of ocular tribology, as well as tribology of teeth, including its contact mechanics, as well as that of fillings, in addition to the issues of physiological, pathological, and phylactic wear. In the clinical areas of endeavour, the development of skin and dental hygiene gels and fluids will progressively become significant applications of multi-scale tribology, including nanotribology. Some heath care applications of tribology will extend to the large area of cosmetics. As all these areas of tribology would include complex multi-scale multi-physics interactions with required detailed predictive analysis, their general use by lay persons would require the use of knowledge-based expert systems and the application of artificial intelligence. With continual miniaturisation of personal devices, there will be diminution of contact conjunctions and reduction of load, promoting tribology with increased role of intermolecular and surface forces other than the usual viscous. Therefore, we are also likely to witness greater emphasis on nano-tribology.

Finally, the coronavirus pandemic has shown poignantly that one critical route of transmission is through touching infected surfaces. Countering disease propagation through self-cleansing surfaces or setting fundamentals for virus-phobia would become an important area for surface engineering and nanotribology.

I hope that the members of tribology research community and particularly our own Editorial Board would engage proactively with this important Special Featured Issue by responding to this call for papers mostly with original articles, as well as some reviews in the above stated aspects of tribology or other areas not emphasised in this necessarily limited space.

I look forward to receiving your contribution.

The deadline for receiving papers will be 1st November 2023, where the whole volume of accepted contributions will be compiled. In the meantime all papers will appear online immediately upon acceptance.

Dr. Patricia Johns-Rahnejat
Prof. Dr. Homer Rahnejat
Dr. Ramin Rahmani
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Lubricants is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.