Qing Zhou
Operating mechanical systems will eventually experience friction and wear. This can result in the deterioration of critical transmission components, leading to the breakdown of mechanical equipment. With further exploration of the extremely harsh environment, the service conditions of the high load, wide temperature change, and strong irradiation conditions of the equipment put forward higher requirements for material properties. High entropy materials (HEMs) containing multi-principal alloying elements have superior advantages over conventional metallic materials in terms of hardness, strength, toughness, wear resistance, and thermal stability with potential use as wear resistance and friction reduction material. In this chapter, the properties and development status of HEMs for tribological applications were reviewed to gain a better understanding of their advantages and limitations obtained by different preparation methods. Moreover various factors such as crystal structure of the phases, grain size, formation of an oxide layer, and wear mechanisms are outlined. Finally, the key problems to be solved to move the field forward and the future trend of tribology application for HEM are prospected.
