Slip-stick and the evolution of frictional strength

Oded Ben-David, Shmuel M. Rubinstein and Jay Fineberg ()
Additional contact information
Oded Ben-David: The Racah Institute of Physics, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Givat Ram, Jerusalem 91904, Israel
Shmuel M. Rubinstein: The Racah Institute of Physics, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Givat Ram, Jerusalem 91904, Israel
Jay Fineberg: The Racah Institute of Physics, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Givat Ram, Jerusalem 91904, Israel

Nature, 2010, vol. 463, issue 7277, 76-79

Abstract: The minutiae of friction The behaviour of systems as diverse as earthquakes and hard drives is influenced by frictional motion and its strength. What at first glance appears to be a continuous sliding process between touching surfaces is in fact a product of a series of 'slip' and 'stick' events on the microscopic scale. The mechanism of evolution of frictional strength at this level, though, is still unclear. Ben-David et al. have studied the evolution of the local contact area between two sliding bodies (PMMA plastic blocks) and the motion of their interface, and find that it involves four distinct phases. Within microseconds, all the contact area reduction has occurred. This is followed by a rapid slip phase, then a sharp transition to much slower slippage culminating in a 'stick' phase when motion is arrested. After several hundred microseconds the contact area begins to increase again. These results provide a basis for a better understanding of this kind of motion in many technologically important contexts.

Date: 2010
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature08676 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:463:y:2010:i:7277:d:10.1038_nature08676

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/nature08676

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().