Screening applicants ranking candidates

Often it is desirable to perform screening tests on candidate materials. From the previous discussions of the influence of mating geometry on contact stresses and thermal considerations, it should be obvious that any laboratory test that is not an exact physical duplicate of the application will be a compromise on some aspect. The primary purpose of simulative laboratory tests is to rank candidate materials as they would rank in the application. A secondary purpose is to predict the absolute magnitudes of friction and wear in the application. The only reason that this is secondary and not primary is that is seldom possible to translate laboratory tribology tests directly to absolute performance in the application. 

---