Relics
By Dr. Ryan D. Evans, STLE President | TLT President's Report February 2023
Use STLE to learn what others are doing and the tools they are using to do it.
Beauty, memories and true contributions are in the people that used the relics, not the relics themselves.
Why is it that the clothes of famous people in a museum always seem so much smaller than my perception of the real people that wore them? I spent some time in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame (Cleveland, Ohio) recently, and saw a treasure trove of relics from famous musicians. Stage costumes from Paul McCartney, John Lennon’s characteristic British National Health Service round glasses and even stage costumes worn by Harry Styles and Taylor Swift. Even more interesting to me as an amateur guitarist were the musical instruments. I loved to examine up close a guitar that Kurt Cobain from Nirvana smashed after a 1993 show in California. You can’t play another encore if your instruments are destroyed, right?
Unfortunately, I am unsuccessful to this point in launching my own career as a rock guitarist. But in my career as a tribologist, I have my own relics. I fondly remember the reactive sputtering physical vapor deposition system formerly owned by The Timken Co. that I used in my graduate studies research work. I worked for many hours in a dark basement at Case Western Reserve University with a Philips CM20 transmission electron microscope with a built-in film camera for capturing images. On one hand, it was not nearly as convenient as today’s digital detectors for capturing images and diffraction patterns, but on the other hand, I learned how to work in a dark room and develop photos on paper. I also learned how to be extra precise with my focus and framing because sloppy microscope work created even more film developing work later.
If a museum of tribology existed, what relics would people seek out and get excited about seeing in person? Probably not the R. D. Evans collection of tribology relics. Instead, today’s tribologists would flock around Leonardo da Vinci’s notebook drawings and notes exploring the basic concepts of friction and bearings. Perhaps Robert Henry Thurston’s pendulum oil testing machine for measuring coefficients of friction of lubricated journal bearings might be on display. Heinrich Hertz’s glass lenses and spherical components for studying the elastic contact and compression between solids could be there. Richard Stribeck’s hardened steel balls and grooved plate test specimens for studying the load carrying capacity of ball bearings would be of interest to modern bearing engineers. Certainly, we would find early bespoke tribology test rigs from Duncan Dowson’s labs on display as well.
An old saying is: “Universities have people but not equipment, and companies have equipment but not people.” The intersection of the right people and equipment is where valuable contributions are born. Many strong collaborations involve a person in one place with a great experimental idea and another person somewhere else with the needed tools to make that idea happen. I have partnered with U.S. National Laboratories in this way in my own career. In STLE’s Connect, Learn, Achieve value proposition, all three items are focused on people—our STLE community. STLE is a way to get together, share and learn from fellow tribologists. Beauty, memories and true contributions are in the people that used the relics, not the relics themselves. That was my takeaway following my Rock & Roll Hall of Fame visit—that seeing Kurt Cobain’s guitars was great, but in my hands, they would sound the same as my own guitar at home. Professor Dowson’s tribometers would run my experiments just fine, but it wouldn’t make me as strong an engineer as him.
A huge benefit of membership in STLE’s community is the facilitation of fruitful interactions between today’s people and toolkits. Meet your fellow tribologists and expand your network of expert colleagues. If someone has tribology equipment that you think you need, do not be afraid to reach out and propose a collaboration. Use STLE to learn what others are doing and the tools they are using to do it. Rock and roll artists leave behind their recordings and relics in the same way tribologists leave behind our technical papers and project results. But it is not enough to only appreciate the relics from the past. The real magic happens when you engage your fellow artists live and in person today!
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.