Maria Wojtowicz: Tribology Enabling Sustainable Transitions: Wear Mechanism Studies in Agriculture and Transportation

Abstract

The transition towards more sustainable technologies is introducing new tribological challenges in a wide range of engineering applications. Changes in materials, operating conditions, and system design can alter contact conditions and wear behavior, making the selection and development of wear-resistant materials increasingly important. Achieving this requires a detailed understanding of the wear mechanisms governing material wear. However, such understanding is often difficult to obtain from full-scale testing due to high costs and the complexity of the resulting wear damage, while overly simplified laboratory tests may fail to accurately represent real applications.

The overall objective of this thesis was to develop test, evaluation, and analysis methodologies that enable detailed investigations of wear mechanisms in industrially relevant applications. The work focused on two tribological systems where the transition towards sustainable solutions has created new materials challenges: impact-sliding wear associated with unsuccessful gear shifts in electric vehicle non-synchronous transmissions, and soil-induced wear of agricultural tools, particularly tools designed for precision tillage.

For both applications, methodologies were developed that combined the advantages of controlled laboratory testing with a high degree of application relevance. In the transmission application, laboratory methods enabled systematic investigations of damage evolution under impact-sliding conditions. In the agricultural application, a novel mobile pendulum test was developed, allowing detailed studies of soil-induced wear directly under field conditions.

The results demonstrate that simplified test methods can provide valuable mechanistic insights, provided that the wear mechanisms remain representative of those occurring in the intended application. The developed methodologies enabled investigations that would have been difficult using either conventional field tests or highly simplified laboratory experiments alone. The knowledge generated contributes to a deeper understanding of wear processes and provides a foundation for the selection and development of improved wear-resistant materials for future sustainable technologies.