At PCS Instruments, we are pleased to introduce a new webinar series designed to share expert knowledge, technical insight, and real-world testing experience from our work in tribology.
Tribology plays a vital role in the function, reliability, and efficiency of modern technologies. It influences how surfaces interact across countless applications, shaping the performance of everything from critical components to everyday systems. Whether through managing friction, reducing wear, or supporting effective lubrication, tribology helps ensure that systems operate as intended, safely, consistently, and with durability. Through this webinar series, we want to bring the science behind those interactions to a wider audience.
Each webinar will be filmed in the PCS offices in our newly completed gear lab and presented by experts from across the PCS team. The content will be focused, practical, and designed to support engineers, researchers, students, and enthusiasts alike.
This series is designed to offer clear, focused insight into the principles, challenges, and thinking that shape tribological testing today.
Each webinar will explore a specific topic from a practical perspective, drawing on the expertise and experience of our PCS Instruments team. While the structure of the series will continue to evolve, every session will be developed to provide meaningful knowledge that viewers can apply in their own context – whether in research, engineering, or product development.
Content will vary in depth, so whether you’re building foundational knowledge or expanding your technical understanding, there will be something valuable to take away. The series will grow over time, shaped by audience interest and the real conversations happening around surface testing today.
To launch the series, we are releasing a short introductory video on Slide-to-Roll Ratio (SRR). While this is only a taster of the content of the webinar series to come, it serves as a standalone explainer and a preview of the kind of content we are developing.
SRR is used to quantify how two surfaces move relative to each other when in rolling–sliding contact. It plays a key role in understanding how film thickness, friction, and wear behaviour change under different conditions.
In practical terms, SRR can range from zero, indicating pure rolling, to values above or below ±2.0, depending on the relative speeds of the surfaces involved. High SRR values reflect motion dominated by sliding, while lower values suggest a greater rolling contribution. The ability to vary SRR across this full range allows researchers to investigate how surfaces respond under different mechanical conditions.
This video introduces:
Future sessions in this series will take things further, with in-depth topics, live demonstrations from our gear lab, and expert-led discussions focused on the instrumentation and applications that matter most to our industry. Think of this as your first step into a much wider series and a taste of what’s to come.
In many mechanical systems, components do not move in perfect rolling contact. Sliding often occurs alongside rolling, due to differences in geometry, loading, or operating speed. The ability to measure and control SRR helps engineers simulate real-world conditions and better understand how surfaces behave in motion.
In testing environments, SRR can influence film thickness, temperature rise, and material response. Accurately defining SRR allows for consistent test conditions and more meaningful interpretation of results.
Understanding SRR is particularly important in applications such as:
To stay informed as new webinars are released, we invite you to follow PCS Instruments on LinkedIn and subscribe to our mailing list through our website.
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