Fatigue and wear are the most dangerous damaging phenomena of modern machines: they cause some 90% of failures.

At the end of the last century it was appreciated that the most important parts of any machine are so called active systems - any mechanical systems, which operate in the conditions of the contact interaction between elements (sliding, rolling, slippage etc.) and simultaneously transmit cyclic workload. Complex wear-fatigue damages emerge in such systems; the processes of their emerging and developing are studied by Tribo-Fatigue.

The formation and development of Tribo-Fatigue takes place at the boundaries of three disciplines: Fatigue Fracture Mechanics, Tribology, the Theory of Reliability of Mechanical Systems. Since the Mechanics of Wear-Fatigue Damage is dealt with, the term Tribo-Fatigue quite sufficiently but in short reflects its notion: tribos (Greek) - friction that symbolizes modern Tribology including Tribological Reliability, fatigue (French) symbolizes modern Fatigue Fracture Mechanics including Strength Reliability.

The development of Tribo-Fatigue opens new perspectives for increasing the durability of machines according to the most important criteria of their serviceability concurrently with the reduction of the cost of labor, means and materials in the sphere of production and operation.

TRIBOFATIGUE Ltd was organized in 1992 in Gomel, a large scientific and industrial center of the Repablic of Belarus. In 1993 it was reorganised into the Scientific and Production Group TRIBOFATIGUE.

In a period of 10 years the S&P Group TRIBOFATIGUE in cooperation with Belarusian, Russian, Ukrainian scientists and specialists contributed significantly to the development of a new science and technology:

• several theoretical problems were set and solved the generalization of which allowed to formulate the fundamentals of the Mechanics of Wear-Fatigue Damage and Failure;
• the fundamental mechanisms of wear-fatigue were studied experimentally;
• new advanced technologies of wear-fatigue tests were developed;
• several modifications of the Si-series machines for wear-fatigue tests of materials and the models of active systems were created, 3 interstate and 5 Belarusian standards in the field of Tribo-Fatigue were developed and put into practice.

The results of the research were discussed and gained much recognition at the International Symposiums on Tribo-Fatigue: the 1^{st -} 1993 Gomel, Belarus; the 2nd - 1996 Moscow, Russia; the 3rd - 2000 Beijing, China; the 4th -2002 Ternopil, Ukraine.

In 1996 the Academies of Sciences of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine established the International Coordinating Council on Tribo-Fatigue the basic tasks of which are organizing and coordinating fundamental and applied research, conducting international symposiums, publishing the results of the research on Tribo-Fatigue.

THE MAIN TRENDS IN TRIBO-FATIGUE ARE:

• in a theoretical aspect - deeper insight into the basic regularities of wear-fatigue damage of materials, the conditions under which active systems reach their limiting states, as well as the need to seek for new principles and methods to predict their durability and prevent emergencies among intricate and essential technological devices in operation;
• in a practical aspect - transition from designing individual parts of machines and equipment to projecting life of active systems requiring the development and implementation of a complex of methods of controlling wear-fatigue damage of specific active systems in order to save cost of labor, means and materials in the sphere of production and operation of modern machinery and at the same time to promote its durability;
• in fne aspect of the progress of testing equipment - the development and implementation of advanced methods and technologies of wear-fatigue tests, including accelerated ones, and the creation on their basis of a new class of testing equipment;
• in the aspect of the creation of normative technical base -the development and inculcation of a complex of standards for the methods of wear-fatigue tests which would allow to formulate and solve in future the problem of certification of active systems based on the essential criteria of their performance;
• in the aspect of training personnel - the inclusion of the fundamentals of Tribo-Fatigue (dynamics, strength, wear resistance of machines, apparatus and equipment) into curriculum for teaching students of machine building. It is time to solve the problem of including it as a major subject for training engineers and researchers.