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The use of polymers and polymer composites in various tribological situations has become state of the art. Nevertheless, new developments are still under way to explore new fields of application for these materials and to tailor their properties for more extreme loading conditions. Some of these developments can be followed when searching through the 56 references given at the end of this review. The present overview describes, in particular, some of the authors' approaches in designing polymeric composites in order to operate under low friction and low wear against steel counterparts. Special emphasis is focused on thermoplastics and thermosets reinforced with special fillers (including nanoparticles). An attempt is made to predict their wear properties and to carry out systematic parameters studies by the use of artificial neural networks. Further information will be given on the fibre orientation dependence of wear of continuous carbon fibre-polymer matrix composites, and on attempts to predict their load-bearing capacity and related wear mechanisms by the use of finite elements. In addition, some new steps towards the development of functionally graded tribomaterials are illustrated.

Producing highly stiff and strong thin‐walled fabric‐reinforced parts for mass application can be economic using a double‐belt press to consolidate thermoplastic sheet and a hydraulic press for non‐isothermal stamp forming in a second step. During stamp forming, undesired wrinkle formation can occur at sites of three dimensional forming. To understand the mechanisms of wrinkle formation, shear tests were performed with different types of reinforcing glass and carbon fabric, both dry and impregnated with a polyamide (PA12) matrix. Evidence has been found that wrinkle formation during fabric shear is strongly dependent on membrane stresses within the fabric. High membrane stresses of ∼20 MPa can prevent wrinkling even at high shear angles of ∼60°. These stresses can be generated during stamp forming by means of blank holders. A new flexible roller tracking device has successfully been installed on a stamp forming pilot plant. It was possible to form chests sized 450 mm. 300 mm. 40 mm (w. l. d) free of wrinkles with a 4‐ply glass plain weave fabric preimpregnated with polyamide matrix (PA12) and a fiber content of 45 vol%.