General Topics
Sharp knives – high friction
Trying to slice a tomato into thin slices with a dull knife can get a little scary. The harder the knife must be pressed downward before the skin is broken is directly related to the […]
News
Computational Tribology
Knowing the strength of adhesion
How can flies walk on the window glass upside down? How can geckos climb walls and trees? It looks like a simple question, but it is hard to answer. The secret is that flies and geckos, and many other living […]
Computational Tribology
A very simple estimate of adhesion with rough surfaces based on a bearing area model
Here we present an abstract to the paper addressing a simplified model for adhesion between hard rough solids. Abstract In the present note, we suggest a single-line equation estimate for adhesion between elastic (hard) rough […]
News
Contact mechanics challenge results: a follow up discussion
In 2015 Prof. Martin Müser of Saarland University in Saarbrücken, Germany initiated a contact mechanics challenge with a goal to provide tribologists with benchmarks to decide which method is the most appropriate for a particular problem. […]
General Topics
On the history of elastohydrodynamics
Here we present an abstract to a paper devoted to the history of eastohydrodynamic theory and his founder – Alexander Mohrenstein-Ertel. This paper discusses in detailes the peculiar biography of the scientist and the early years of the […]
Computational Tribology
Some open problems in adhesion (of rough surfaces)
By M.Ciavarella, A. Papangelo. Politecnico di BARI, Italy. Adhesion for ‘‘soft’’ bodies shows instabilities like in the simple case of a single sinusoid even in the so called JKR regime (Johnson 1995) which leads to […]
General Topics
White etching cracks
Today, bearing failure due to rolling contact fatigue is generally a rare occurrence, and the final achieved service life of rolling bearings is usually well in excess of the calculated rating life. There are instances, […]
General Topics
Note on the history of contact mechanics and friction
No future without history! A great article on the history of great discoveries in the field of contact mechanics and friction was recently published by Elena Popova and Valentin L. Popov. Here we present the […]
Bio Tribology
Cartilage tribology: Slip sliding away
Research sheds light on friction, lubrication and wear in cartilage 11:25 a.m., Aug. 24, 2015–Osteoarthritis, which affects some 27 million people in the U.S. alone, occurs when the protective cartilage on the ends of bones […]
Computational Tribology
Simulating Physics
Nature is quantum mechanical, and UCSB/Google researchers are ready to study it with a nine-qubit array and the problem of many-body localization When does a metal stop being metallic? When do atoms start breaking the […]