Tribotronics.New Fields of Applications for Tribology

Tribology, defined some fifty years ago in the famous JOST report (1966) submitted to the British government at the time, as a science concerned with the study of friction and wear phenomena on surfaces in contact and in relative motion (and with lubrication), is inherent to the technological development of functional, robust, reliable and efficient machines. All machines involve numerous mechanical contacts between various surfaces, potentially generating friction and wear, as well as substantial energy losses, not to mention environmental impacts (loss of lubricants, emission of debris, maintenance). The overall cost of losses due to wear and friction is commonly estimated at 3 to 4% of an industrialized country's GNP. This field is therefore of the utmost importance, and since its emergence as a science at the end of the 1970s, tribology - an integral part of surface engineering - has always been interested in new fields of application and new concepts (interface tribology, etc.). Today, tribology is moving towards a "virtuous" tribology with the concept of "green tribology" or "sustainable tribology". It can also become an asset in fields where contact mechanics, friction and therefore wear are not, at first sight, of importance. This article provides an overview of the various aspects of tribotronics, or rather tribotronics, in the age of the Internet of Things and energy efficiency, where interaction with other fields such as electronics, IT and semiconductors is becoming increasingly important for the development of the products of the future.