Tribological sinks in emerging industries: electronics and robotics

This report describes a preliminary review of the impact of tribological effects - losses due to friction and wear - in two emerging industries: robotics and electronics. Major sources of tribological wear in the robotics industry include the chains used to drive the robots and the joints in the elbow and wrist. In the electronics industry, the largest source of tribological wear is the particulate wear of vacuum pumps used in corrosive environments. Other significant sources of wear are the conveyor belts, blowers, and fans used for clean rooms, and the slicing, lapping and polishing operations for silicon wafers. The major loss mechanisms are friction and abrasion (abrasion includes 2-body wear, 3-body wear, gouging, grinding, erosion, and cutting wear)