The Increase of Tribological Reliability of Friction Pairs

The performance of tribological components directly affects the safety, durability, and sustainability of technologies. The key parameters shaping the tribological behavior and reliability of machinery joints are the physical, chemical, and mechanical interactions between contacting surfaces, the compatibility of materials, the efficiency of lubricants, and the operating environment.
An inappropriate selection of engineering materials and tribological parameters may lead to accelerated wear, surface degradation, or unexpected failure modes, which increases maintenance costs and reduces the service life of machinery.

This collection of scientific articles, “The Increase of Tribological Reliability of Friction Pairs,” brings together recent advances in experimental studies, modeling approaches, and practical case analyses. The contributions address a wide range of topics, including novel material pairings, surface engineering techniques, lubrication strategies, and predictive reliability methodologies. By uniting perspectives from materials science, mechanical engineering, and applied tribology, this collection aims to provide new insights into how material compatibility governs system performance and to highlight pathways toward more reliable, efficient, and sustainable tribological designs.

The goal of this collection is to present features of new tribological materials, lubricants, and green tribotechnical technologies, their application areas, advantages, and limitations. A critical issue in ensuring machinery reliability is the change in material properties during operation and the development and improvement of monitoring systems for tribological components.

We invite authors working on tribological reliability to submit articles to this special collection. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

• New and combined methods of coating formation and surface modification;
• The influence of surface treatments on wear mechanisms, degradation modes, and rates;
• The importance of material compatibility in tribological joints;
• Self-regulation processes in friction pairs;
• Green technologies in surface treatment and tribological joints;
• Changes in lubricant properties during operation,
• Development and improvement of monitoring systems for lubricating and tribological systems.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• ... View all formats

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Review
• Systematic Review

Keywords: Tribosystem, Combined surface treatment, Surface modification, Surface degradation mechanisms, lubricants, additives in lubricants, biodegradability of lubricants, Green tribology

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.