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Entropy 2010, 12, 1021-1049; doi:10.3390/e12051021
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entropy
ISSN 1099-4300 www.mdpi.com/journal/entropy Review

On the Thermodynamics of Friction and Wear―A Review
M. Amiri and Michael M. Khonsari *
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA 70803, USA
* Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail: [e-mail];
Tel.: [phone]; Fax: [phone].
Received: 17 March 2010; in revised form: 18 April 2010 / Accepted: 19 April 2010 /
Published: 27 April 2010

Abstract: An extensive survey of the papers pertaining to the thermodynamic approach to tribosystems, particularly using the concept of entropy as a natural time base, is presented with a summary of the important contributions of leading researchers.
Keywords: friction; wear; energy dissipation; contact temperature; entropy production; non-equilibrium thermodynamics; self-organization

1. Introduction
Tribology—the science of lubrication, friction, and wear—deals with a diverse array of man-made and natural systems of interacting bodies in relative motion. As the principal cause of wear and energy dissipation, friction is responsible for consuming about one-third of the world’s energy resources as humans attempt to overcome its barrier in one form or another [1].
Given that a process involving friction is always accompanied by transformation of energy, it is logical to attempt to develop a thermodynamic framework for studying its characteristics. Naturally, energy dissipation in friction processes represents an irreversible phenomenon, making the concept of the thermodynamic entropy production an ideal tool for probing into its complex behavior.
This paper presents a review of published works and the authors’ perspective on the potential of using the thermodynamic approach to friction and wear in modeling sliding contacts in tribosystems.
The outline of this paper is as follows: we begin, in Section 2,