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The contributions of David Tabor to the science of indentation hardness Ian M. Hutchingsa) Institute for Manufacturing, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 1RX, United Kingdom (Received 15 May 2008; accepted 22 July 2008)

Tabor’s book The Hardness of Metals, published in 1951, has had a major influence on the subject of indentation hardness and is by far the most widely cited source in this area. Although hardness testing was widely used for practical purposes in the first half of the 20th century, its use was generally based on little scientific understanding. The history of indentation hardness testing up to that point is reviewed, and Tabor’s contribution is appraised in this context. I. INTRODUCTION

Professor David Tabor (Fig. 1), who died in November 2005, was one of the founding fathers of the science of tribology, and was renowned for his contributions to the understanding of friction and boundary lubrication. However, his reputation is just as great for his work on the science of indentation hardness, and that is the topic of the present review. Tabor was born in London on October 23, 1913, to parents who had emigrated from Russia.1,2 After undergraduate study at the University of London (Imperial College), he moved to Cambridge in 1936 to undertake research under the supervision of Philip Bowden in the Department of Chemistry. Tabor’s collaboration with Bowden lasted until the latter’s death in 1968. Their first joint publication3 in 1939 discussed the area of contact between surfaces, and it established the crucial point that the real area was generally much smaller than the apparent area. This notion was a major theme in much of their subsequent work. At the outbreak of World War II, Bowden, who was Australian and visiting his home country at the time, was persuaded by the Australian Government to set up a research group at Melbourne University to work on the practical problems of lubricants and bearings. Tabor joined the new laboratory in 1940, and he briefly became its head in 1945 to 1946 when Bowden returned to Cambridge. At that point Tabor, at Bowden’s behest, conceived the name ‘tribophysics’ to describe the activities and interests of the group. The Tribophysics Section, becoming the CSIRO

Division of Tribophysics in 1948, thrived until 1978 when its name was changed to Division of Materials Science.4 Tabor rejoined Bowden in Cambridge in 1946, and remained in Cambridge for the rest of his life. The research group in the University of Cambridge, founded by Bowden and led by Tabor from 1968 until his official retirement in 1981, eventually moved from the Department of Physical Chemistry to the Department of Physics (the Cavendish Laboratory) and changed its name several times. At one point it was named ‘Physics of Rubbing Solids’ and at another ‘Surface Physics’.

a)

Address all correspondence to this author. e-mail: [email protected] This author was an editor of this focus issue during the review and decision stage. For the JMR policy on review and publication of ma