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G.2116
Thelawsoffriction
What do you do when you wake up in the morning? You might throw off the bedclothes and
walk across the carpet to put on a dressing gown. Then visit the bathroom, and before long
youre sliding down the banisters ready to begin a new day. All these activities involve
friction, but imagine what would happen if there were no such thing. The bedclothes wouldnt
stay on the bed long enough for you to sleep under them, and since you couldnt tie knots,
the cord on your dressing gown would be useless (actually, the fabric would have
disintegrated long ago). You wouldnt be able to walk to the bathroom, although you might
try skating along the carpet. In any case, the bathroom would be flooded because the taps
wouldnt stay screwed to the pipework.

We use the term friction to describe the resistance displayed by two materials to sliding over
one another when their surfaces touch. Because they are so important, we are taught laws of
friction in school. They were first codified around 500 years ago and refined during the 18th
century. They are not fundamental in the same sense as Newtons laws of motion, but
rather, approximate rules that emerge from some fascinating and complex properties of solid
materials at the molecular level. These properties are determined by events within a surface
layer that may be only a few molecules thick. Its not just a matter of smoothness, but also
chemistry, because almost all materials form a surface layer whose composition is different
from the underlying mass. This applies to glass, plastics, and even diamond. When exposed
to the atmosphere, most metals develop an oxidised coating within minutes [4].

What the laws say

The laws of friction apply to surfaces that are not lubricated in any way. Imagine a glass jar
resting on the horizontal surface of a wooden table. Its base is smooth, flat and square,
measuring 100 mm by 100 mm. The jar will press vertically down on the table by virtue of its
own weight, so it is exerting a force at right-angles to the surface. The force between two
objects acting at right-angles to the interface is called the normal contact force, denoted by
N (figure 1). If we try to push the jar sideways it will resist, and the heavier the jar, the more

difficult it is to move. Under these conditions, smooth, rigid materials like timber, glass and
steel obey three well-known rules.

1. The frictional resistance is proportional to the force exerted by the object at right
angles to the surface. More precisely, the maximum resistance F is given by the normal
contact force N multiplied by the (static) coefficient of friction, thus:

F = N (1)
The coefficient has a fixed value for any particular combination of two materials in
contact. In the example mentioned earlier, since the normal contact force derives solely
from the jars weight its value is just M g newtons, where M is the mass of the jar and g

the acceleration due to gravity. But it could easily be altered by tilting the table, or
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the acceleration due to gravity. But it could easily be altered by tilting the table, or
filling the jar with water.
2. The frictional resistance is independent of the area of contact, so the normal contact
force can be concentrated over a small area or spread out over a large one it makes
no difference. If our glass jar had flat sides larger than the base, say 200 mm by 100
mm, we could turn the jar on its side and the frictional resistance would be unchanged
(figure 2).
3. Once the object starts to slide, the resistance usually falls to a lower value Fs say. This
sliding friction or kinetic friction is again proportional to N , so we can write
Fs = s N (2)
where the coefficient of sliding friction s is usually less than the coefficient of static
friction . Its value is roughly constant regardless of the speed of motion.

Figure 1
A glass jar resists sliding across the table

Figure 2
Does the area of contact matter?

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Where do they come from?

The first two rules were established by the 17th century French architect and science
philosopher Guilluame Amontons [1]. If you think about them for a moment, these rules are
quite remarkable. It is not immediately obvious why doubling the load on a glass jar should
double the friction, nor how the area of contact can be increased or decreased without
affecting the outcome. But scientists soon devised an explanation based on the idea that
friction arose from tiny projections on each surface. Indeed, examination through a
microscope will confirm that what might appear to be a smoothly polished surface is far from
smooth at high levels of magnification. The projections were thought to interlock, like two
sheets of sandpaper grating together.

A tentative model
Let us pursue this idea for a moment the results will be useful later on, not least because
they demonstrate that resistance can occur even when the surfaces slide over one another
without any shear forces at all, as if they were perfectly lubricated. For simplicity, well
assume a model in which the two surfaces are ridged, with regularly spaced teeth that
interlock across the whole area of contact. This model was originally posited by the French
scientist Coulomb during the late eighteenth century [2] and was also investigated by the
mathematician Euler [7]. Figure 3 shows the arrangement in cross-section. Each tooth has
two straight sides, both at angle to the plane of contact. The two surfaces are squeezed
together with a normal contact force N .

Figure 3
A simple sawtooth model

For the upper surface to slide over the lower one, it must move a short distance upward and
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For the upper surface to slide over the lower one, it must move a short distance upward and
to the right at angle until the crests of the teeth pass over the crests of the teeth in the
lower surface and engage in the next set of valleys. We stipulate that there is no friction
between the two surfaces. What is the largest horizontal force that the block can sustain
before moving?

Figure 4
Forces acting at the contact surface

The set-up can be represented by a trolley moving up a sloping surface on frictionless rollers
as shown in figure 4. Resolving vertically and then horizontally, we get

N = R cos (3)
F = R sin (4)
from which it is clear that

F = N tan (5)
In other words, the lateral resistance to motion is proportional to the normal contact force.
The term tan plays a similar role to the coefficient of friction in equation 1, being a
constant that depends only on the characteristics of the surfaces concerned. So our tentative
model predicts the first law of friction rather well. Unfortunately, its wrong.

Asperities and molecular forces

In real life, surfaces are more complicated, and it was not until well into the 20th century that
the truth was finally uncovered, and set out in a historic publication that has recently been
revived in a facsimile edition [3]. Friction is the action of electrical forces between molecules
on either surface. These forces have an extremely small range, and for them to come into
play the two surfaces have to be in very close contact. But each surface is covered with peaks
or asperities of varying height, so that when two surfaces are brought together, they only
touch at a few places and elsewhere the gap is too large for the molecular forces to bridge.
The area over which the surfaces are actually in contact is a tiny proportion of the apparent
contact area. Because the peaks are so small, it takes only a gentle force pressing the
surfaces together to crush them, and the frictional characteristics are determined entirely by
the behaviour of these minute areas under extreme stress conditions.

Friction for different materials

Therefore in order to explain the relationship between friction and normal contact force, we
must focus on what happens to the material within these minute areas of contact when two
material specimens are pressed together. Well break the process down into two stages: first
we apply only a normal contact force, then we add a shear force to make the surfaces slide
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we apply only a normal contact force, then we add a shear force to make the surfaces slide
over one another.

Metals
When two metal specimens are pressed against one another, the peaks dont break, but
rather they yield, flowing like molten lava as soon as the stress passes a certain threshold.
This yield stress has a fixed value, so at every point where the surfaces are in contact, the
true normal stress is more-or-less the same. What happens if you press harder? The yield
stress cant change, so the areas of contact expand in proportion to the normal contact force
(figure 5).

Figure 5
Effect of normal force on area of contact

Now for the shear force. If we try to slide the two surfaces over one another, we find that the
high spots are continually pressure-welded together, then torn apart in a process described
as slip-stick [6]. It is the force needed to tear them apart that manifests itself as friction,
and its total value increases linearly with true contact area (figure 6) - and we know that the
true contact area is in turn proportional to the normal contact force. Although we have skated
over the details a little, this explains why friction is proportional to normal contact force.

Figure 6
Effect of area of contact on friction

Many other materials behave in roughly the same way, except that the relationship between
normal contact force and friction force is not exactly linear, and therefore friction is not
entirely independent of area. The value of the coefficient of friction for any given combination
of materials cannot be predicted in advance and must be determined by experiment.
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of materials cannot be predicted in advance and must be determined by experiment.
Observed values range from 0.04 for the sliding friction of Teflon on Teflon, to 4 for rubber
on steel [5].

Rubber tyres
Being flexible, rubber will mould itself around asperities on the surface of a harder material.
Hence the true contact area is much greater than is the case for metals, and there are no
stress concentrations that in a metal would lead to plastic flow. Nevertheless, the true contact
area, and hence frictional resistance, increases with normal contact force N because as the
normal stress increases, the rubber surface works its way more deeply into the crannies
between the asperities. But the relationship is not linear: the friction doesnt increase exactly
in proportion with N , a property that has interesting consequences for car tyres (see Section
C1717).

And there is another difference. Rubber is one of a special class of materials for which the
resistance to sliding is actually made up of two distinct components: conventional friction as
described earlier, which we call the adhesion component, and a second component hysteresis
which arises in a completely different way (see Section C1717). The hysteresis component
accounts for less than half the total, but unlike adhesion it keeps working even when the
surface is wet, a property for which travellers have reason to be grateful.

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References

1. BOWDEN, F P and TABOR, D (1974, 2nd ed)

Friction: an introduction to tribology
London: Heinemann, see p13.
2. BOWDEN, F P and TABOR, D (1974, 2nd ed)
Friction: an introduction to tribology
London: Heinemann, see p17.
3. BOWDEN, F P and TABOR, D (1954, 2nd ed)
The friction and lubrication of solids
Oxford Classic Texts in the Physical Sciences. Oxford University Press.
4. BOWDEN, F P and TABOR, D (1954, 2nd ed)
The friction and lubrication of solids
Oxford Classic Texts in the Physical Sciences. Oxford University Press, see p149.
5. BOWDEN, F P and TABOR, D (1954, 2nd ed)
The friction and lubrication of solids
Oxford Classic Texts in the Physical Sciences. Oxford University Press, see p165, 169.
6. ELLIS, J R (1994)
Vehicle dynamics and handling
London: Mechanical Engineering Publications, see p3.
7. WILLIAMS, J (2005)
Engineering tribology
Cambridge University Press, see p135.

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