The Effect of Scale in Tribological Testing

The tribological problems, which have to be taken into consideration in micromachines, micromechanisms, Micro Electro Mechanical Systems (MEMS) devices, and components such as silicon micromotors, toothed gears, gas turbines etc., are discussed in this study. In such systems, entirely different problems appear when compared with tribological problems in macroscale machines. It was proved that the values of friction parameters in the devices where the contact area is some milimeters square cannot be applied to the situation when the realistic contact area is only a few micro or nanometers square.