No Arabic abstract
We report on memory effects involved in the transient frictional response of a contact interface between a silicone rubber and a spherical glass probe when it is perturbed by changes in the orientation of the driving motion or by velocity steps. From measurements of the displacement fields at the interface, we show that observed memory effects can be accounted for by the non-uniform distribution of the sliding velocity within the contact interface. As a consequence of these memory effects, the friction force may no longer be aligned with respect to the sliding trajectory. In addition, stick-slip motions with a purely geometrical origin are also evidenced. These observations are adequately accounted for by a friction model which takes into account heterogeneous displacements within the contact area. When a velocity dependence of the frictional stress is incorporated in this the model, transient regimes induced by velocity steps are also adequately described. The good agreement between the model and experiments outlines the role of space heterogeneities in memory effects involved in soft matter friction.
Variable power transmission in mechanical systems is often achieved by devices, e.g., clutches and brakes, that use dry friction. In these systems, the variability in power transmission is brought about by engaging and disengaging the friction plates. Though commonly used, this method of making the coupling noisy is not as versatile as their electrical analog. An alternative method would be to intermittently vary the frictional force. In this paper, we demonstrate a self-organized way to tune the noise in the frictional coupling between two surfaces which are in relative motion with each other. This is achieved by exploiting the complexity that arises from the frictional interaction of the balls which are placed in a circular groove between the surfaces. The extent of floppiness in the coupling is related to the rate at which the balls make transitions between their rolling and sliding states. If the moving surface is soft and the static surface is hard we show that with increasing filling fraction of the balls the transitions between rolling and sliding against the static surface give way to the transitions between rolling and sliding against the moving surface. As a consequence, the noise in the coupling is large for both small and large filling fraction with a dip in the middle. In contrast, the sliding with the static surface is suppressed if the moving pate is hard and the noise in the coupling decreases monotonically with the filling fraction of the balls.
We use continuum simulations to study the impact of friction on the ordering of defects in an active nematic. Even in a frictionless system, +1/2 defects tend to align side-by-side and orient antiparallel reflecting their propensity to form, and circulate with, flow vortices. Increasing friction enhances the effectiveness of the defect-defect interactions, and defects form dynamically evolving, large scale, positionally and orientationally-ordered structures which can be explained as a competition between hexagonal packing, preferred by the -1/2 defects, and rectangular packing preferred by the +1/2 defects.
We report on the transient frictional response of contacts between a rigid spherical glass probe and a micrometer-thick poly(dimethylacrylamide) hydrogel film grafted onto a glass substrate when a lateral relative motion is applied to the contact initially at rest. From dedicated experiments with textit{in situ} contact visualization, both the friction force and the contact size are observed to vary well beyond the occurrence of a full sliding condition at the contact interface. Depending on the imposed velocity and on the static contact time before the motion is initiated, either an overshoot or an undershoot in the friction force is observed. These observations are rationalized by considering that the transient is predominantly driven by the flow of water within the stressed hydrogel networks. From the development of a poroelastic contact model using a thin film approximation, we provide a theoretical description of the main features of the transient. We especially justify the experimental observation that the relaxation of friction force $F_t(t)$ toward steady state is uniquely dictated by the time-dependence of the contact radius $a(t)$, independently on the sliding velocity and on the applied normal load.
Shear thickening of particle suspensions is characterized by a transition between lubricated and frictional contacts between the particles. Using 3D numerical simulations, we study how the inter-particle friction coefficient influences the effective macroscopic friction coefficient and hence the microstructure and rheology of dense shear thickening suspensions. We propose expressions for effective friction coefficient in terms of distance to jamming for varying shear stresses and particle friction coefficient values. We find effective friction coefficient to be rather insensitive to interparticle friction, which is perhaps surprising but agrees with recent theory and experiments.
Yielding behavior is well known in attractive colloidal suspensions. Adhesive non-Brownian suspensions, in which the interparticle bonds are due to finite-size contacts, also show yielding behavior. We use a combination of steady-state, oscillatory and shear-reversal rheology to probe the physical origins of yielding in the latter class of materials, and find that yielding is not simply a matter of breaking adhesive bonds, but involves unjamming from a shear-jammed state in which the micro-structure has adapted to the direction of the applied load. Comparison with a recent constraint-based rheology model shows the importance of friction in determining the yield stress, suggesting novel ways to tune the flow of such suspensions.