A Dynamic Friction Model for Unlubricated Rough Planar Surfaces

Abstract

Modeling dynamic or kinetic friction for realistic engineering surfaces continues to be a challenge, partly due to the coupling between system dynamics and interfacial forces. In this paper, a dynamic friction coefficient model for realistic rough surfaces under external normal vibrations is developed. From the system dynamic model, the instantaneous time varying normal separation at the interface is obtained under normal harmonic excitation. Subsequently, the instantaneous dynamic contact and tangential (friction) forces are calculated as a function of the instantaneous normal separation. The dynamic friction coefficient defined as the ratio of the time varying friction to the interfacial normal forces that explicitly includes interfacial damping, is also calculated. The results show that a mean increase in the instantaneous normal separation may or may not lead to a decrease of the mean friction force and the mean friction coefficient, which is supported by published data. For unlubricated elastic sliding contact conditions considered in this paper, the effect of damping on the dynamic friction coefficient is found to be negligible, whereas loss of contact causes significant apparent dynamic friction force and dynamic friction coefficient reductions. Several different interpretations of the time varying dynamic friction coefficient are presented and the implications of using a simple constant value to represent the time varying dynamic friction coefficient are discussed.