Introduction to Tribology
1.1 . Introduction
    The grneric word Tribology is derived from ancient
    Greek. Its root is found in a verb of that period trivein
    which itself was based on the word pedo,meaning (the
    character formation of privileged children by their home
    tutors) .
     More recently ,1964 Government appointed committee
    was set up to find ways of reducing the untoward
    effects of friction on the British industrial economy. The
    committee invented the word Tribology to emphasize
    the scientific nature of studying the interactions of solid
    contacting surfaces in relative motion these being
    covered by the three disciplines of FRICTION,
    LUBRICATION and WEAR.
    For example, friction gives us the ability to walk and to
    grasp objects , whilst lubrication is essrntial for the
    proper functioning of the joints in our skeletons .
    By means of effective lubrication , mechanical design
    seeks to minimize friction in devices such as engines,
    skis and computer hard disc drives. On the other hand
    ,high friction is essential for the traction and braking of
    rubber car tyres against the road surface.
An example of a device using rolling friction , was
conceived by Leonardo Da Vinci around 1495. His
ingenious design was of a low friction thrust ball bearing
using bobbin type separators .
Throughout the history of tribology , the approach for
finding ways of reducing friction has mainly been by trial
and error or by experiments .
1.2. Regimes of Lubrication
As lubrication is an important component of Tribology ,
here is a convenient point to introduce the reader to its
structure in a very simple and approximate way .we will
assume that two rubbing (or rolling) solid surfaces are
like steel on steel, they are also rough because a
perfectly smooth surface cannot exist.
Stribeck originally devised a convenient way of relating
roughness and film thickness by a parameter
The STRIBECK CURVE show below where the coefficient
of friction (    ) is plotted against
The frictional contact of clean surfaces is represented by
point A at the beginning of the BOUNDARY
LUBRICATION regime.
At point B where the surface roughness equals the film
thickness we enter the mixed or partial lubrication
regime BC.
The progressive reduction in the value of   carries
further into the regime CD where a coherent
ELSTOHYDRODYNAMIC (EHL) lubricant film is produced.
The next regime beyond D covers the HYDRODYNAMIC
and EXTERNALLY PRESSURIZED type of bearing.