Always perfecting
Dr. Ryan D. Evans, STLE President | TLT President's Report September 2022
This new motto is our vision for the grand impact STLE tribologists and lubrication engineers have on the world.
Nothing can make tribologists feel simultaneously both smart and stupid as when a non-tribologist asks them to define the word “tribology.” On one hand, we feel smart because we can rattle off Peter Jost’s classic “interacting surfaces in relative motion” definition, but then we might feel stupid when we get the inevitable “oh, just friction and wear” recognition from our audience, followed by some comment wondering about why an unfamiliar “-ology” word is needed to describe it. A game that I like to play is to challenge people to think about one essential aspect of modern life—whether it be food, shelter, medicine, transportation, skeletal orthopedics, etc.—and then I explain where and how tribology technology enables those machines to operate effectively and efficiently.
I hope you noticed that STLE changed our vision recently to “Perfecting Motion.” If you are not up to speed on the organizational mottos, perhaps you have heard about the STLE Podcast titled “Perfecting Motion:® Tribology and the Quest for Sustainability” that is available on most major podcast platforms. The beauty of such a short and direct vision is that it both identifies what tribologists care about and the ideal to which we aspire. While I might direct people to think about basic movement mechanisms in machines and animals in a conversational sense, tribologists care deeply about the interfaces between the components in “motion” in a precise and technical sense—or in other words, the surfaces that link moving parts together must interact in a predictable way if one expects a machine to function predictably. Everyone understands motion.
The interesting word in the STLE vision is “perfecting.” The present tense of the word “perfecting” is critical here. Is there a such thing on planet Earth as “perfect?” Perfect relative to what? Even physical absolutes like “absolute zero” temperature can be approached but not truly reached. One may argue that perfection is attainable in a metaphysical sense, such as the existence of “perfect love” or other emotional, theological or spiritual concepts. With all of that aside, tribologists realize that the attainment of perfect motion is probably not a reasonable goal, so instead our quest toward that end points toward an optimization objective. Thus, “Perfecting Motion” is our vision for the grand impact STLE tribologists and lubrication engineers have on the world, even though we realize we can never completely attain “perfect motion” in machines.
Tribological science and engineering is not a settled and solved technical discipline yet. We all can marvel at the way machines enable food production, shelter construction, comfortable fast transportation and even the fabrication of electronic devices and network equipment for modern communication. However, the more that tribologists develop the technical literature and practices of our field, the more they realize how much is not fundamentally understood. They realize how far away we are from perfect motion. Most modern machines that enable civilization were designed using engineering relationships originally derived with surprisingly few experimental data points or with rudimentary modeling approaches. Work continues to fine tune and improve these engineering tools and practices, including improving the fidelity of mathematical models and experimenting at smaller and smaller length scales to understand even nanometer-scale and molecular influences on friction.
Because the pursuit of our vision continues, STLE believes in supporting our community with educational resources and training opportunities, such as the STLE Learning Pathways, webinars and short courses; opportunities for members to connect and interact with STLE Industry Insights; and top-quality technical journals, such as Tribology Transactions and Tribology Letters. While we never may completely “perfect motion,” STLE remains committed to serving the community of scientists and engineers that are “always perfecting” it.
Dr. Ryan Evans is director of R&D at The Timken Co. in North Canton, Ohio. You can reach him at ryan.evans@timken.com.