Global warming is a main concern for everyone, and it also affects every industry sectors. The current need for reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions calls for a wide range of measures where technological development and innovations play an important role. Domestic transportation represents around a fourth of the total greenhouse gases emissions in the EU, which leads to a need for solutions regarding these new regulations.

Lightweighting vehicles is a solution for reducing fuel consumption as well as CO2 emissions. High strength aluminium alloys show a promising compromise between weight reduction while allowing for passenger safety thanks to their energy absorption capacity and high strength. Aluminium alloys are already employed for cosmetic parts in vehicles, enabling considerable weight reduction, but implementing high strength Al structural parts in the body in white comes with many tribological challenges.

These alloys need to be formed at high temperatures due to strengthening process and poor room temperature formability. However, they are prone to severe adhesion which to date has prevented their mass production. To date, working solutions for preventing adhesion in forming operations at high temperature have not been developed.

This thesis summarises the work on the subject that has been carried out over four years. This summary encompasses the screening and validation in lab-scale experiments of various solutions (lubricants, surface engineering) for the hot aluminium-tool steel contact. The main mechanisms responsible for friction and material transfer at high temperature were studied. Assessment of promising methods (lubricants, surface engineering) to effectively hinder and prevent material transfer were characterised.

The main results in this thesis show that: lubricants and surface engineering techniques must be simultaneously adjusted for effective prevention of aluminium transfer. Roughness of the tool steel plays two adverse roles in the contact: a detrimental one when leading to ploughing of the Al surface and a beneficial one in active retention of lubricants. Various lubricant formulations show promising results for the hot forming applications and should be further researched in real contact conditions.