4,352 research outputs found
Experiments to investigate particulate materials in reduced gravity fields
Study investigates agglomeration and macroscopic behavior in reduced gravity fields of particles of known properties by measuring and correlating thermal and acoustical properties of particulate materials. Experiment evaluations provide a basis for a particle behavior theory and measure bulk properties of particulate materials in reduced gravity
Stiffness of Contacts Between Rough Surfaces
The effect of self-affine roughness on solid contact is examined with
molecular dynamics and continuum calculations. The contact area and normal and
lateral stiffnesses rise linearly with the applied load, and the load rises
exponentially with decreasing separation between surfaces. Results for a wide
range of roughnesses, system sizes and Poisson ratios can be collapsed using
Persson's contact theory for continuous elastic media. The atomic scale
response at the interface between solids has little affect on the area or
normal stiffness, but can greatly reduce the lateral stiffness. The scaling of
this effect with system size and roughness is discussed.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
Towards a modeling of the time dependence of contact area between solid bodies
I present a simple model of the time dependence of the contact area between
solid bodies, assuming either a totally uncorrelated surface topography, or a
self affine surface roughness. The existence of relaxation effects (that I
incorporate using a recently proposed model) produces the time increase of the
contact area towards an asymptotic value that can be much smaller than
the nominal contact area. For an uncorrelated surface topography, the time
evolution of is numerically found to be well fitted by expressions of
the form [, where the exponent depends on
the normal load as , with close to 0.5. In
particular, when the contact area is much lower than the nominal area I obtain
, i.e., a logarithmic time increase of the
contact area, in accordance with experimental observations. The logarithmic
increase for low loads is also obtained analytically in this case. For the more
realistic case of self affine surfaces, the results are qualitatively similar.Comment: 18 pages, 9 figure
Theory of adhesion: role of surface roughness
We discuss how surface roughness influence the adhesion between elastic
solids. We introduce a Tabor number which depends on the length scale or
magnification, and which gives information about the nature of the adhesion at
different length scales. We consider two limiting cases relevant for (a)
elastically hard solids with weak adhesive interaction (DMT-limit) and (b)
elastically soft solids or strong adhesive interaction (JKR-limit). For the
former cases we study the nature of the adhesion using different adhesive force
laws (, , where is the wall-wall separation). In
general, adhesion may switch from DMT-like at short length scales to JKR-like
at large (macroscopic) length scale. We compare the theory predictions to the
results of exact numerical simulations and find good agreement between theory
and the simulation results
Contact area of rough spheres: Large scale simulations and simple scaling laws
We use molecular simulations to study the nonadhesive and adhesive
atomic-scale contact of rough spheres with radii ranging from nanometers to
micrometers over more than ten orders of magnitude in applied normal load. At
the lowest loads, the interfacial mechanics is governed by the contact
mechanics of the first asperity that touches. The dependence of contact area on
normal force becomes linear at intermediate loads and crosses over to Hertzian
at the largest loads. By combining theories for the limiting cases of nominally
flat rough surfaces and smooth spheres, we provide parameter-free analytical
expressions for contact area over the whole range of loads. Our results
establish a range of validity for common approximations that neglect curvature
or roughness in modeling objects on scales from atomic force microscope tips to
ball bearings.Comment: 2 figures + Supporting Materia
Breakdown of disordered media by surface loads
We model an interface layer connecting two parts of a solid body by N
parallel elastic springs connecting two rigid blocks. We load the system by a
shear force acting on the top side. The springs have equal stiffness but are
ruptured randomly when the load reaches a critical value. For the considered
system, we calculate the shear modulus, G, as a function of the order
parameter, \phi, describing the state of damage, and also the ``spalled''
material (burst) size distribution. In particular, we evaluate the relation
between the damage parameter and the applied force and explore the behaviour in
the vicinity of material breakdown. Using this simple model for material
breakdown, we show that damage, caused by applied shear forces, is analogous to
a first-order phase transition. The scaling behaviour of G with \phi is
explored analytically and numerically, close to \phi=0 and \phi=1 and in the
vicinity of \phi_c, when the shear load is close but below the threshold force
that causes material breakdown. Our model calculation represents a first
approximation of a system subject to wear induced loads.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figure
Magnetic friction in Ising spin systems
A new contribution to friction is predicted to occur in systems with magnetic
correlations: Tangential relative motion of two Ising spin systems pumps energy
into the magnetic degrees of freedom. This leads to a friction force
proportional to the area of contact. The velocity and temperature dependence of
this force are investigated. Magnetic friction is strongest near the critical
temperature, below which the spin systems order spontaneously.
Antiferromagnetic coupling leads to stronger friction than ferromagnetic
coupling with the same exchange constant. The basic dissipation mechanism is
explained. If the coupling of the spin system to the heat bath is weak, a
surprising effect is observed in the ordered phase: The relative motion acts
like a heat pump cooling the spins in the vicinity of the friction surface.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Finite-element analysis of contact between elastic self-affine surfaces
Finite element methods are used to study non-adhesive, frictionless contact
between elastic solids with self-affine surfaces. We find that the total
contact area rises linearly with load at small loads. The mean pressure in the
contact regions is independent of load and proportional to the rms slope of the
surface. The constant of proportionality is nearly independent of Poisson ratio
and roughness exponent and lies between previous analytic predictions. The
contact morphology is also analyzed. Connected contact regions have a fractal
area and perimeter. The probability of finding a cluster of area drops as
where increases with decreasing roughness exponent. The
distribution of pressures shows an exponential tail that is also found in many
jammed systems. These results are contrasted to simpler models and experiment.Comment: 13 pages, 15 figures. Replaced after changed in response to referee
comments. Final two figures change
Static Versus Dynamic Friction: The Role of Coherence
A simple model for solid friction is analyzed. It is based on tangential
springs representing interlocked asperities of the surfaces in contact. Each
spring is given a maximal strain according to a probability distribution. At
their maximal strain the springs break irreversibly. Initially all springs are
assumed to have zero strain, because at static contact local elastic stresses
are expected to relax. Relative tangential motion of the two solids leads to a
loss of coherence of the initial state: The springs get out of phase due to
differences in their sizes. This mechanism alone is shown to lead to a
difference between static and dynamic friction forces already. We find that in
this case the ratio of the static and dynamic coefficients decreases with
increasing relative width of the probability distribution, and has a lower
bound of 1 and an upper bound of 2.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures, revtex
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