Introduction
Tomlinson Movie
Macroscopic Friction
The law of Leonardo (da Vinci)
The law of Euler and Amontons
The law of Coulomb
Historical abstract
Asperities
Adhesion models
Friction Force Microscopy
Principle of measuring
Measuring Topology
Measuring Friction
Both Channels
Calibration
Dissipation
Self assessment
Tomlinson's mechanism
Phenomenology I
Phenomenology II
Mechanical adiabaticity
Distinguish positions
Playing Tomlinson
Friction - a pinning problem
2D Friction
Critical Curves
Historical Background
Research Projects
Simulator Applet
The first Picture
The Panels
Parameters
Post processing
Statistics
Glossary
Textbook
 

Asperities

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Small asperities are destroyed by the normalforce. The real area of contact is enlarged.

Even a surface which appears to be flat on a millimeter scale may contain micrometer scale asperities i.e. the surface is rough. If we bring two surfaces in contact, only these asperities really touch each other. Friction is due to the interaction between the asperities of the different surfaces and the resulting energy dissipation is due to the interaction of these asperities. The real area of contact is therefore a few orders of magnitude smaller than the apparent area of contact. This important fact has to be taken into account while modelling a friction process.

Wear of the material is one possible reason of friction. Though, if you calculate the rate of wear by means of the mechanical work you have to close that the wheels of a locomotive would be distroyed after a few kilometers of use.

It follows that only a little part of the atoms have been removed from their initial position through this process.

This idea has been dropped as the theory of the (permanent) plastic transformation came up. It says that every transfomation is plastic. The law of Amonton can easily be derived from this theory.

1961 J.F.Archard anew pointed that a permanent plastic deformation destroys every machine within minutes.

Today it is said that the deformations of the surfaces are widely elastic.The back transformation brings the material back to the initial state. But the fast return to the initial state turns on grid vibration inside the solid body which produces temperature.

 
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