4. Conclusion

Because of their major technological role and their notable sensitivity to damage, silicate glasses have received a great deal of attention from tribologists. Most of the phenomenology has been explained in the context of contact mechanics, mainly in the elastic framework, although the contribution of plastic deformation has been included in a qualitative manner, since it is only involved at a fairly local level. The methods adopted to reduce damage are generally aimed at reducing mechanical coupling at the surface, in particular friction. This contact mechanics has also been extended to include coupling with the environment. However, it should be noted that most of these results remain qualitative. There is a major technical difficulty in studying the structure of amorphous matter, and a conceptual difficulty in modeling its behavior. As a result, significant progress still needs to be...