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Is there a future for materials science students in tribology?

My comments on a reddit discussion

https://www.reddit.com/r/materials/comments/1nmooy5/comment/nfg6vub/

Tribology is a very important subfield of Mat sci and highly relevant anywhere there are moving parts. Like many other materials science domains its cross disciplinary and overlaps with automotive , aerospace ,manufacturing and even nano systems. I think its definitely worth studying and one should atleast  know about core concepts. From a purely research point of view the field is quite deep especially as it is being developed for nano systems and other emerging areas like triboluminescence.

It does have a future. Wear is one of the major failure mechanism in materials and lots of resources are allocated to minimise it. Turbines,engine components, tyres ,cutting tools all suffer from wear and constant monitoring and refinement of process parameters is necessary.Many coatings are designed to reduce friction and wear Diamond like carbon films are cutting edge if you can build some skills around it.

If you are already enrolled in a material science course I'd say go for it. It expands your skill set and makes you more valuable in the job market.

Having said that your success would mostly depend upon what you want to do and how you present your skills tailored to the job requirements. It'll be different in academia as compared to say in industry.

How can you prepare yourself for a specialization in tribology?

If your goal is to get a job as a tribologist in industry then I think wear (including all of different ways materials wear out) and it's prevention (through lubrication ,coating and bearings —all of which are complete subjects on their own) would be most important. What you learn would depend upon the material that university is offering but nearly every course on tribology would have atleast those two topics. 

If you are on the fence about whether or not to take up the subject I suggest watching a few videos on  YT to get yourself acquainted with the subject. Then you'll have an overview and you can use it to research about job opportunities which are quite decent in this field. 

Market is not exactly overflowing with demand for tribologists but for a materials science subject I think there's a good distribution of jobs especially in US and EU. One upcoming big industrial application that I can think of right now is friction stir welding. It's quite revolutionary and may play a big role if it succeeds in the market. 

If you're aiming for a research job then tribology goes very very deep than what first assessment would suggest. As I indicated above it's Science of surfaces in contact and motion and thus covers a vast range of topics like contact mechanics,adhesion,cavitation, comminution,mechanochemistry,triboelectricity,charge transfer at surfaces — and thus contact charging , deformation and more.  AFM is entirely based on contact mechanics. This is a cutting edge tool and you can get a job just by learning how to use it, if your uni has one. 

On the research side there are some pretty wild implications like how surfaces deform just by touching. Things that one takes for granted like friction at macro scale are not resolved at atomic and molecular level. What is touching? Do surfaces even touch? Then there are papers like the one that reports production x rays through scotch tape and plasma formation due to surface fracture at nanoscale gaps(this plays a very imp role in mechanochemistry). There are many other things that you'll learn as you go deeper. 

Personally my fascination with tribology began when I was experimenting on ways to create nanocellulose mechanically without use of strong chemicals. I was surprised just how vast this field really is. So for you I guess it depends on what you want out of your learning?

Feel free to get in touch with me to discuss anything related to materials science. 

Akshat Jiwan Sharma
Strategy Consultant--Innovation/ Materials science/International relations/Telecommunications/Digital Transformation/Partnerships Mobile/whatsapp:+919654119771
 email:getellobed@gmail.com

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