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
 

Historical Background

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The figure shows Prandtl's visualization of the "Tomlinson" mechanism.

The mechanism for atomic friction, presented in 1929 by Tomlinson was already used a year before by Prandtl as a model for the dynamic of shift lines in a crystal.

Prandtl was interested in the irreversible transformations of non-monocrystal solid. Because there is no hysteresis in ideal mono crystals between voltage and transformation, he was drawn to say, that the dynamics of shift lines must be responsible for this phenomenon. His model of the behaviour of an atom belonging to a shift line equaled the one of Tomlinson for a surface atom during the friction process. It's obvious that he could explain the hysteresis effects.

 
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