Friction is the force resisting the relative motion of solid surfaces, fluid layers, and/or material elements sliding against each other. There are several types of friction:
Dry friction resists relative lateral motion of two solid surfaces in contact. Dry friction is subdivided into static friction between non-moving surfaces, and kinetic friction between moving surfaces.
Fluid friction describes the friction between layers within a viscous fluid that are moving relative to each other.
Lubricated friction is a case of fluid friction where a fluid separates two solid surfaces.
Skin friction is a component of drag, the force resisting the motion of a solid body through a fluid.
Internal friction is the force resisting motion between the elements making up a solid material while it undergoes deformation.
When surfaces in contact move relative to each other, the friction between the two surfaces converts kinetic energy into heat. This property can have dramatic consequences, as illustrated by the use of friction created by rubbing pieces of wood together to start a fire. Kinetic energy is converted to heat whenever motion with friction occurs, for example when a viscous fluid is stirred. Another important consequence of many types of friction can be wear, which may lead to performance degradation and/or damage to components. Friction is a component of the science of tribology.
Friction is not a fundamental force but occurs because of the electromagnetic forces between charged particles which constitute the surfaces in contact. Because of the complexity of these interactions friction cannot be calculated from first principles, but instead must be found empirically.
History
The classic rules of sliding friction were discovered by Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), but remained unpublished in his notebooks. They were rediscovered by Guillaume Amontons (1699) and were further developed by Charles-Augustin de Coulomb (1785). Leonhard Euler (1707-1783) derived the angle of repose of a weight on an inclined plane and first distinguished between static and kinetic friction. Arthur Morrin (1833) developed the concept of static friction. Osborne Reynolds (1866) derived the equation of viscous flow. This completed the classic empirical model of friction (static, kinetic, and fluid) commonly used today in engineering.
The focus of research during the last century has been to understand the physical mechanisms behind friction. F. Phillip Bowden and David Tabor (1950) showed that at a microscopic level, the actual area of contact between surfaces is a very small fraction of the apparent area. This actual area of contact, caused by "asperities" (roughness) increases with pressure, explaining the proportionality between normal force and frictional force. The development of the atomic force microscope (1986) has recently enabled scientists to study friction at the atomic scale.
Laws of dry friction
The elementary properties of sliding (kinetic) friction were discovered by experiment in the 15th to 18th centuries and were expressed as three empirical laws:
Amontons' First Law: The force of friction is directly proportional to the applied load.
Amontons' Second Law: The force of friction is independent of the apparent area of contact.
Coulomb's Law of Friction: Kinetic friction is independent of the sliding velocity.
Amontons' 2nd Law is an idealization assuming perfectly rigid and inelastic materials. For example, wider tires on cars provide more traction than narrow tires for a given vehicle mass because of surface deformation of the tire
Dry friction
Dry friction resists relative lateral motion of two solid surfaces in contact. The two regimes of dry friction are static friction between non-moving surfaces, and kinetic friction (sometimes called sliding friction or dynamic friction) between moving surfaces.
Coulomb friction, named after Charles-Augustin de Coulomb, is an approximate model used to calculate the force of dry friction. It is governed by the equation:
where
is the force of friction exerted by each surface on the other. It is parallel to the surface, in a direction opposite to the net applied force.
is the coefficient of friction, which is an empirical property of the contacting materials,
is the normal force exerted by each surface on the other, directed perpendicular (normal) to the surface.
The Coulomb friction may take any value from zero up to , and the direction of the frictional force against a surface is opposite to the motion that surface would experience in the absence of friction. Thus, in the static case, the frictional force is exactly what it must be in order to prevent motion between the surfaces; it balances the net force tending to cause such motion. In this case, rather than providing an estimate of the actual frictional force, the Coulomb approximation provides a threshold value for this force, above which motion would commence. This maximum force is known as traction.
The force of friction is always exerted in a direction that opposes movement (for kinetic friction) or potential movement (for static friction) between the two surfaces. For example, a curling stone sliding along the ice experiences a kinetic force slowing it down. For an example of potential movement, the drive wheels of an accelerating car experience a frictional force pointing forward; if they did not, the wheels would spin, and the rubber would slide backwards along the pavement. Note that it is not the direction of movement of the vehicle they oppose, it is the direction of (potential) sliding between tire and road.
Block on a ramp (top) and corresponding free body diagram of just the block (bottom).
Main article: Normal force
The normal force is defined as the net force compressing two parallel surfaces together; and its direction is perpendicular to the surfaces. In the simple case of a mass resting on a horizontal surface, the only component of the normal force is the force due to gravity, where . In this case, the magnitude of the friction force is the product of the mass of the object, the acceleration due to gravity, and the coefficient of friction. However, the coefficient of friction is not a function of mass or volume; it depends only on the material. For instance, a large aluminum block has the same coefficient of friction as a small aluminum block. However, the magnitude of the friction force itself depends on the normal force, and hence the mass of the block.
If an object is on a level surface and the force tending to cause it to slide is horizontal, the normal force between the object and the surface is just its weight, which is equal to its mass multiplied by the acceleration due to earth's gravity, g. If the object is on a tilted surface such as an inclined plane, the normal force is less, because less of the force of gravity is perpendicular to the face of the plane. Therefore, the normal force, and ultimately the frictional force, is determined using vector analysis, usually via a free body diagram. Depending on the situation, the calculation of the normal force may include forces other than gravity.