Environmentally friendly tribo systems

This paper provides an introduction and a survey of the Collaborative Research Centre 'Environmentally Friendly Tribosystems by Suitable Coatings and Fluids with Respect to the Machine Tools'. It starts with the requirements leading to the research work and explains the current environment in this field. Thereafter the goal of the research as well the applied strategy and methods are described. It also comprehends the structure the CRS established divided into the fields of materials, substances and its behaviour; components, systems and processes and data collection with its analytical methods. Exemplary some results are shown which will be treated in more detail in the papers of this session. The paper concludes with the transfer of know how and provides an outlook onto the research work of the current phase.