Agenda Tribology

Purpose and goal

Tribology is the name for all processes involving surfaces in contact with each other. Wear and friction are typical examples of such processes. Contact surfaces are everywhere and are often critical to the function of a product, energy efficiency, durability and safety. The goal was to bring together stakeholders from a wide range of areas, with common needs, to understand and control the tribological processes in order to define the most important future tribological challenges for the society. The needs and importance of expertise in tribology for Swedish industry was identified.

Results and expected effects

The main result is an agenda for tribology research and innovation. It describes a strategy for how the tribological challenges can be tackled and how the knowledge in tribology can be improved, communicated and utilized. The effect of this agenda is to strengthen the network in tribology research between industry, institutes and universities, and that these are to find new knowledge and techniques to develop products and processes that are free of tribological problems or create opportunities to use new technologies which today are limited by tribological problems.

Approach and implementation

The first stakeholder meeting with approximately 30 participants was held in March 2014. A work group was formed with participants from Luleå tekniska universitet, Uppsala Universitet, Swerea, Applied Nano Surfaces and SP. The group had meetings on regular basis and the first results were discussed at the Tribology Days in Gothenburg 15 to 16 October 2014 where many stakeholders participated. The work group continued to meet until the work was focussed to a smaller group at LTU. A UK based company was asked to finalise the text, its graphical design, and the printing of the agenda text.