On Slip Inception and Static Friction for Smooth Dry Contact

Slip inception mechanism is very important for modeling of static friction and understanding of some experimental observations of friction. In this work, slip inception was treated as a local competence of interfacial bonding failure and weaker material failure. At any contacting point, if bond shear strength is weaker than softer material shear strength, slip inception is governed by interfacial bonding failure. Otherwise, it is governed by softer material failure. Considering the possible co-existence of these two slip inception mechanisms during presliding, a hybrid static friction model for smooth dry contact was proposed, which indicates that the static friction consists of two components: one contributed by contact area where bonding failure is dominant and the other contributed by contact area where material failure is dominant. With the proposed static friction model, the effects of contact pressure, the material properties, and the contact geometry on static friction were discussed.