Module 2

Friction
• Friction is the resistance to motion during sliding or rolling, that is experienced
when one solid body moves tangentially over another with which it is in contact.

• The resistive tangential force, which acts in a direction directly opposite to the
direction of motion, is called the friction force.

• There are two main types of friction that are commonly encountered: dry friction
and fluid friction.

• As its name suggests, dry friction, also called “Coulomb” friction, describes the
tangential component of the contact force that exists when two dry surfaces move
or tend to move relative to one another.

• Fluid friction describes the tangential component of the contact force that exists
between adjacent layers in a fluid that are moving at different velocities relative to
each other as in a liquid or gas between bearing surfaces.
 Static and Kinetic Friction

• If the solid bodies are loaded together and a tangential force (F) is applied, then the value
of the tangential force that is required to initiate motion is the static friction force, Fstatic
or Fs.
• It may take a few milliseconds before relative motion is initiated at the interface.
• The tangential force required to maintain relative motion is known as the kinetic (or
dynamic) friction force, Fkinetic or Fk .
• The static friction force is either higher than or equal to the kinetic friction force.
 Importance of Friction
• The provision of sufficiently large friction such as in walking, gripping objects, driving
cars, etc.

• The reduction of friction as in case of machinery.

• Maintaining friction constant within narrow limits as in metal rolling industries,

precision devices.

• Providing necessary condition for friction caused oscillations such as in stringed

instruments.
 Empirical Laws of Friction
• The force of friction is proportional to normal
load between two bodies in contact. Amonton’s Laws
Most materials obey the laws well
• The force of friction is independent of apparent except polymers and some others.
area of contact between the two bodies.

Coulomb’s Law
• The force of friction is independent of sliding
speed.
Has smaller range of applicability.

Note:
• The prediction of coefficient of friction for a pair of materials under a given set of
operating conditions is a very difficult task.

• No theoretical methods exist for the same.

• Safest approach is to measure the friction experimentally.

 Measurement of Friction
Inclined Plane rig:
• Simplest arrangement.
• Specimen is placed on an inclined flat plane.
• Inclination increased gradually till specimen starts sliding.
• Incapable of evaluating friction in continuous sliding.
 Measurement of Friction
Pin-on-disc rig:
• Continuous sliding cases.
• Pin held stationary while disc is made to rotate.
• Normal load is applied by dead weights, spring loading or hydraulic/pneumatic
pressure.
• Tangential force is measured using a transducer mounted on stationary specimen.
 Measurement of Friction
Other standard arrangements:
• Pin on cylinder.
• Crossed cylinders.
• Reciprocating rig.
• Ball on flat.
• Etc.
 Sliding friction – Adhesion and Deformation

• For two metals in sliding contact, high pressures developed at individual contact
spots.

• Causes local welding.

• Contacts thus formed are sheared subsequently by relative sliding of the surfaces.

• Later, it was argued that asperities do not have to weld.

• Only the interfacial adhesion between asperities is sufficient to account for the
friction of metals and ceramics.
 Sliding friction – Adhesion and Deformation

• Energy is required for micro-scale deformation of the contacting surfaces during

relative motion.

• If the asperities of one surface (the harder of the two, if dissimilar) plow through
the other via plastic deformation, energy is required for this macroscale
deformation (grooving or plowing).

• Macro-scale deformation can also occur through the particles trapped between the
sliding surfaces.

Total intrinsic frictional force = Fi

Force needed to shear adhered junctions = Fa
Force needed to supply the energy of deformation = Fd
 Adhesion
• When two nominally flat surfaces are placed in contact under load, the contact takes
place at the tips of the asperities.

• The load being supported by the deformation of contacting asperities, and discrete
contact spots (junctions) are formed.

• The sum of the areas of all the contact spots constitutes the real (true) area of the contact
(Ar ).

• For most materials under normal load, this will be only a small fraction of the apparent
(nominal) area of contact (Aa).

• The proximity of the asperities results in adhesive contacts caused by either physical or
chemical interaction.

• When these two surfaces move relative to each other, a lateral force is required to shear
the adhesive bonds formed at the interface in the regions of real area of contact.
 Adhesion
• Rupture occurs in the weakest regions, either at the interface or in one of the mating
bodies.

• After shearing of the existing contacts, new contacts are formed.

• Because adhesion arises from molecular forces between the surfaces, the adhesive
forces are of the same nature as the forces existing between the molecules
themselves.

• Consequently, the interface may be as strong as the bulk materials, and during
sliding, the shearing process may actually tear out fragments of the materials.

• In that case, the friction force would depend on the bulk shear strength of the
materials
 Adhesion

Two rough surfaces in a sliding contact

Cold welded spots in a sliding contact

 Deformation
• Deformation interaction may be of two types:
– Microscopic interaction limited to only the asperities.
– Macroscopic interaction involving ploughing of bulk material.

• It may also include ploughing due to trapped wear debris.

• Deformation and adhesion components are often not independent to each other.

• Magnitude of contribution of adhesion and deformation depends on surface

roughness, hardness of materials, shape / size of debris particles, hardness of debris
particles, etc.

• Thus, COF varies widely in magnitude depending upon the materials and
conditions.
 Deformation
• Deformation interaction may be of two types:
– Microscopic interaction limited to only the asperities.
– Macroscopic interaction involving ploughing of bulk material.

• It may also include ploughing due to trapped wear debris.

• Deformation and adhesion components are often not independent to each other.

• Magnitude of contribution of adhesion and deformation depends on surface

roughness, hardness of materials, shape / size of debris particles, hardness of debris
particles, etc.

• Thus, COF varies widely in magnitude depending upon the materials and
conditions.
Three body interaction
 Theories of Friction
Bowden and Tabor’s Simple Adhesion Theory:

• When two surfaces are loaded, intimate contact occurs at the peak of asperities.
• Real area of contact is very less compared to nominal area.
• Pressure at the asperity tips is very high such that asperity of softer material
deforms plastically.
• Plastic flow causes total contact area to grow.
• Growth of contact takes place by two means:
– Growth of individual contact spots.
– Initiation of new contacts.

• This process continues till total area of contact is sufficient to support the load
elastically.
 Theories of Friction
Bowden and Tabor’s Simple Adhesion Theory contd…:

• For an elastic plastic material, the normal load may be expressed as:
W = A . p0

where A is real area of contact and p0 is yield pressure of softer material and is very
close to the hardness H. Thus:
W=A. H
• As severity of plastic deformation increases, asperity junctions get cold welded and
strong adhesive bonds are formed.
• Force required to cause shear failure of asperity junctions, i.e., friction force due to
adhesion is:
Fadh = A . s
where s is the shear strength of softer material.
• Coefficient of friction due to adhesion is:
µadh = Fadh/W = s/H
 Theories of Friction
Bowden and Tabor’s Simple Adhesion Theory contd…:

• For most of untreated materials H = 3 σy & s = σy/1.7321.

• Expected value of μ = 0.2, as μ = s Ú H.
• But for most of the material pair μ is greater than 0.2.
• There is a huge difference between measured values of friction coefficient and
estimated by theory of adhesion.
• Theory is unable to estimate different μ for steel on indium and steel on lead alloy.
 Theories of Friction
Bowden and Tabor’s Simple Adhesion Theory contd…:

• For most materials, s/H is almost constant, and this theory predicts a value of 0.2
friction coefficient for metals.

• The inadequacies are:

– COF depends only on properties of softer material.
– One can expect same value of COF for a same softer sliding against any other harder
material which is not true as seen from experimental results.
– Under normal atmospheric conditions, actual values of COF for metal pairs are around
0.5 rather than 0.2 predicted by this theory.
– COF is seen to be much higher even more than unity in case of materials under
contaminant free sliding condition and vacuum.
– It is assumed that the material has a constant value of flow stress. But all metals strain
hardens to some extent which increases the value of s compared to H. This increases µadh.
 Theories of Friction
Modified Adhesion Theory: Junction Growth

• The drawback’s of simple adhesion theory led to the development of modified

adhesion theory.

• Bowden and Tabor were motivated to think that contact area might become much
enlarged under the additional shear force and they proposed junction growth theory.

• Considered combined effect of both normal and shear stresses.

• Normal load determined the real area of contact.

• To shear over this area, tangential force was needed.

• High COF in case of clean metals point to the fact that true area of contact must be
much greater than that predicted by normal load alone.
 Theories of Friction
Modified Adhesion Theory: Junction Growth

• Bowden and Tabor considered two rough surfaces subjected to normal load W and
friction force at the interface.

• To explain their hypothesis they considered two dimensional stress system.

• If W force is in y-direction and force in x-direction is zero.

 Theories of Friction
Modified Adhesion Theory: Junction Growth

(1)

(2)

Subtracting eqn. 3 from 2 we get:

(3)

(5)
(4)

(6)
 Theories of Friction
Modified Adhesion Theory: Junction Growth

• τy and W remain constant and this indicates that area of contact will increase with
increasing friction force, till force reaches its limiting value.

• We can state that on application of additional incremental tangential force, there

will be further plastic flow at constant shear stress, resulting in an incremental
contact area of A.

• Bowden and Tabor called this increase the junction growth.

 Theories of Friction
Modified Adhesion Theory: Junction Growth
• Assume τi is shear stress of fractured interface.
(6)

(7)

(8)
 Theories of Friction
Modified Adhesion Theory: Junction Growth
• When the interface has the same shear strength as the bulk material μ becomes
infinite, since junction growth is unlimited.
• For weaker interfaces μ is finite.

• An interface only 10% weaker than

the bulk is sufficient to reduce μ to
about 1.

• While for an interface with half the

bulk strength, μ falls to about 0.3.

• If the interface is very weak, then μ

can have an extremely low value.
 Theories of Friction
Modified Adhesion Theory: Junction Growth

• Two methods to reduce junction growth are contaminations (reducing adhesion)

and lubrication.

• A few molecules thick oxide layer (encountered with metals in air) on the surface
can reduce the friction (i.e. μ = 0.1 to 0.3).

• The surface film prevents the surfaces from sticking together strongly and allows
only a small amount of junction growth to occur.

• To reduce junction growth minimum value of ratio τi/τy must be selected.

 Theories of Friction
Modified Adhesion Theory: Junction Growth

• Presence of liquid lubricant reduces chances of junction growth. One way is to

choose liquid lubricant which has a low value of τ.

• Never use same metal or closely similar metals in tribo-pair.

• Use materials of limited ductility. These materials after a small amount of junction
growth will fracture rather than flow further.
 Theories of Friction
Deformation Theory
• If one of the sliding surfaces is harder than the other, the asperities of the harder
surface may penetrate and plow into the softer surface and produce grooves if shear
strength is exceeded.
• Plowing into the softer surface may also occur as a result of impacted wear
particles. In addition, interaction of two rather rough surfaces may result in
mechanical interlocking on a micro- or macroscale.
• During sliding, interlocking would result in plowing of one of the surfaces. Because
of the plowing displacement, a certain lateral (friction) force is required to maintain
motion.
• Plowing not only increases the friction force, it creates wear particles, which in turn
increase subsequent friction and wear.
 Theories of Friction
Deformation Theory: Hard conical asperity

• The normal load is supported by vertical projection Av

• The friction force is supported by horizontal projection Ah
• The yield pressure is P0

W = P0 × Ah
F = P0 × Av

• Coefficient of friction due to ploughing:

• For hard conical asperity:

 Theories of Friction
Deformation Theory: Hard spherical asperity

For small values of θ:

 Theories of Friction
Deformation Theory: Hard transverse cylinder
 Theories of Friction
Deformation Theory: Hard upright cylinder

We can reduce ploughing component by:

• Reducing surface roughness
• Removing wear particles from interface
• Using materials of more or less same hardness
 Theories of Friction
Stick slip mechanism
• Sliding of one body over another under a steady pulling force proceeds sometimes
at constant or nearly constant velocity, and on other occasions at velocities that
fluctuate widely.
• If the friction force or sliding velocity does not remain constant as a function of
distance or time and produces a form of oscillation, it may be based on a so-called
“stick-slip” phenomenon.

Friction force as a function of time or

distance showing stick-slip behavior
 Theories of Friction
Stick slip mechanism
• During the stick phase, the friction force builds up to a certain value, and once a
large enough force has been applied to overcome the static friction force, slip
occurs at the interface.
• Usually, a saw tooth pattern in the friction force-time curve is observed during the
stick-slip process.
• This classical stick-slip requires that the coefficient of static friction is markedly
greater than the coefficient of kinetic friction.

Friction force as a function of time or

distance showing stick-slip behavior
 Theories of Friction
Stick slip mechanism
• The stick-slip process generally results in vibration, resulting in an audible squeal
( 0.6–2 kHz) and chatter (< 0.6 kHz) in sliding systems.
• The stick-slip process can be responsible for the squeal and chatter in bearings, the
jerking of brakes, the chatter of windshield wipers on partly wet window glass,
earthquakes, and inaccuracies in machining and positioning.

Friction force as a function of time or

distance showing stick-slip behavior
 Theories of Friction
Rolling friction
• It is much easier to roll surfaces than to slide them. Rolling friction is the resistance
to motion that takes place when a surface is rolled over another surface.
• The term rolling friction is usually restricted to bodies of near perfect (continuous)
shapes with very small surface roughness.
• With hard materials, the coefficient of rolling friction between a cylindrical or
spherical body against itself or a flat body generally is in the range of 5 × 10−3 to
10−5.
 Theories of Friction
Rolling friction
• During rolling of two surfaces relative to
each other, any relative motion can be
regarded as a combination of rolling,
sliding and spin.
• Sliding (or slip) is the relative linear
velocity between the two surfaces at the
contact point O in the tangent plane,
• Rolling is the relative angular velocity
between the two bodies about an axis
lying in the tangent plane,
• Spin is the relative angular velocity
between the two surfaces about the
common normal
Thank You