Tribology in Road and Rail Vehicles

Dear Colleagues,

As a discipline, tribology has by now spread across the whole 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 road vehicles are required to have better performance in terms of energy-saving attributes, pollution, NVH (noise, vibration and harshness) and mechanical efficiency. Definitely hybrid vehicles (HEVs) and pure electric vehicles (EVs) will become dominate in the future. It remains the case, however, 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, necessitating further work on the efficiencies of IC engines in the present. Combustion engines that burning hydrogen may well find applications in off-road, heavy-duty or agricultural vehicles. Therefore, new tribological problems associated with these combustion engines must be solved. 

Although great achievements have been made in terms of the energy efficiency and performance of batteries and electric powertrains the design of novel motors, bearings, brushes/slip-ring assembly, brakes, transmissions, lubricants, and lubrication systems in hybrid or pure electric road vehicles must be improved. In addition, the friction and wear problems associated with both road and rail vehicles, particularly high-speed trains—induced by interactions between the tyre and the pavement or wheel and rail—continue to demand attention from tribologists and vehicle manufacturers. Furthermore, vehicle pollution is closely related to tribology problems. This is true for not only engine emissions but vehicle noise at both low and high frequencies, not to mention 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, entitled “Tribology in Road and Rail Vehicles”, in order to cover the latest developments in the tribological and dynamical performance 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 this Special Issue will contain a spread of multi-disciplinary opportunities and challenges related to vehicle tribology in order to support engineers and technologists in their efforts to develop 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 in EVs
• lubrication in EVs
• tire–road contacts
• wheel–rail systems
• braking systems
• novel frictional surfaces
• bio-inspired design
• braking emission
• frictional noise and vibration