Adolf Martens (Adolf Karl Gottfried Martens; 6 March 1850 in Gammelin – 24 July 1914 in Groß-Lichterfelde) was a German

metallurgist Metallurgy is a domain of materials science and engineering that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their inter-metallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are known as alloys. Metallurgy encompasses both the ...

and the namesake of the

steel Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon that demonstrates improved mechanical properties compared to the pure form of iron. Due to steel's high Young's modulus, elastic modulus, Yield (engineering), yield strength, Fracture, fracture strength a ...

structure

martensite Martensite is a very hard form of steel crystalline structure. It is named after German metallurgist Adolf Martens. By analogy the term can also refer to any crystal structure that is formed by diffusionless transformation. Properties Mar ...

and the martensitic transformation, a type of diffusionless

phase transition In physics, chemistry, and other related fields like biology, a phase transition (or phase change) is the physical process of transition between one state of a medium and another. Commonly the term is used to refer to changes among the basic Sta ...

in the solid state. He also made significant contributions to the field of

tribology Tribology is the science and engineering of understanding friction, lubrication and wear phenomena for interacting surfaces in relative Motion (physics), motion. It is highly interdisciplinary, drawing on many academic fields, including physics, c ...

. The functional relationship between the coefficient of friction and the product of sliding speed and viscosity divided by the normal load (well known as the Stribeck curve) was experimentally explored by Adolf Martens in 1888, long before

Richard Stribeck Richard Stribeck (7. July 1861 in Stuttgart, † 29. March 1950) was a German engineer, after whom the Stribeck Curve is named. Life Stribeck studied mechanical engineering in 1880 at the Technical University of Stuttgart in 1885 and worked as a ...

made his pioneering measurements in 1902.

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* * German metallurgists Engineers from Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania 1850 births 1914 deaths People from Ludwigslust-Parchim Tribologists Academic staff of Technische Universität Berlin {{Germany-engineer-stub