What friction is?

Friction is, by definition, the resistance to motion. The magnitude of this resistance is a function
of the materials, geometries and surface features of the bodies in contact, as well as the
operating conditions and environment. It is often desirable to minimize friction to order to
maximize the efficiency of a component or process. Generally speaking, friction increases with
load and surface roughness and can be decreased by the use of a lubricant.

Friction is the tangential resistance to motion between two contacting solid bodies. In 1699,
Amontons proposed two "laws" of friction: (1) friction force is independent of nominal (or
apparent) contact area between the two bodies, and (2) friction force is directly proportional to
the surface-normal component of load. The second of these two laws gives us the equation F =
? W, where F is the friction force, W is the load and ? is the friction coefficient. To understand
this relationship, consider the inclined plane experiment shown in the figure on the left below.
om

As the plane is gradually tilted up and the incline angle ? is increased, the component of the
force due to the weight of the block in the direction of sliding increases. The friction coefficient,
c

which is the ratio of the friction force F to the normal force W, is simply equal to tan ?. Also, the
r.

magnitude of the friction before sliding begins is always greater than that during sliding. This
xe

difference is illustrated in the figure on the right below, where the pre-sliding friction is called the
static friction and the friction after sliding begins is called the kinetic friction.
fi

In reality, friction is not just a function of load and angle, but is also a complex function of the
es

material and surface properties of the two contacting bodies. Friction is measured using an
ad

instrument called a tribometer, where the lateral force (friction) and normal force (load) are
measured while one body moves relative to another. Most tribometers measure friction either
gr

during reciprocating or unidirectional motion. As illustrated in the figure below, reciprocating

motion occurs when one body is slid back and forth over another and unidirectional motion
occurs when one body travels through a circular path on the other. The tribometer in our lab,
shown below on the right, uses reciprocating motion to measure friction.

An example of a friction loop is shown below, where the sign of the friction force reflects the
direction in which the force acts, opposite to the direction of motion. This result is from a single
cycle, where a cycle includes one forward stroke and one backward stroke. In this data, we see
some evidence of stick-slip friction where the relative motion occurs through abrupt starting and
stopping, called stick-slip, such that the friction loop exhibits repeated patterns of both static and
kinetic friction. The friction coefficient for a given cycle is typically taken as the average of the
forward and backward stroke data in the middle of the friction loop, i.e. away from the ends
where inertial effects may play a role. An example of the average friction coefficient per cycle for
three different samples is also shown below. We observe that the friction initially decreases with
cycle for all the samples. This is typical and is called run-in, a process where the surfaces of the
two bodies are evolving to accommodate sliding. After run-in, we have steady-state friction in
which, assuming there is no significant wear, the friction does not change with additional sliding
cycles. We observe different steady-state friction for these three samples, which is attributable
to differences in their material and surface properties.

1/1
Powered by TCPDF (www.tcpdf.org)