When surfaces in contact move relative to each other, the friction between the two surfaces converts kinetic energy into heat. This property can have dramatic consequences, as illustrated by the use of friction created by rubbing pieces of wood together to start a fire. Kinetic energy is converted to heat whenever motion with friction occurs, for example when a viscous fluid is stirred. Another important consequence of many types of friction can be wear, which may lead to performance degradation and/or damage to components. Friction is a component of the science of tribology.
Friction is not itself a fundamental force but arises from fundamental electromagnetic forces between the charged particles constituting the two contacting surfaces. The complexity of these interactions makes the calculation of friction from first principles impossible and necessitates the use of empirical methods for analysis and the development of theory.
The classic rules of sliding friction were discovered by Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), but remained unpublished in his notebooks. They were rediscovered by Guillaume Amontons (1699). Amontons presented the nature of friction in terms of surface irregularities and the force required to raise the weight pressing the surfaces together. This view was further elaborated by Belidor (representation of rough surfaces with spherical asperities, 1737) and Leonhard Euler (1750) who derived the angle of repose of a weight on an inclined plane and first distinguished between static and kinetic friction.. A different explanation was provided by Desaguliers (1725), who demonstrated the strong cohesion forces between lead spheres of which a small cap is cut off and which were then brought into contact with each other.
The understanding of friction was further developed by Charles-Augustin de Coulomb (1785). Coulomb investigated the influence of four main factors on friction: the nature of the materials in contact and their surface coatings; the extent of the surface area; the normal pressure (or load); and the length of time that the surfaces remained in contact (time of repose). Coulomb further considered the influence of sliding velocity, temperature and humidity, in order to decide between the different explanations on the nature of friction that had been proposed. The distinction between static and dynamic friction is made in Coulomb’s friction law (see below), although this distinction was already drawn by Johann Andreas von Segner in 1758. The effect of the time of repose was explained by Musschenbroek (1762) by considering the surfaces of fibrous materials, with fibers meshing together, which takes a finite time in which the friction increases.
John Leslie (1766-1832) noted a weakness in the views of Amontons and Coulomb. If friction arises from a weight being drawn up the inclined plane of successive asperities, why isn’t it balanced then through descending the opposite slope? Leslie was equally skeptical about the role of adhesion proposed by Desaguliers, which should on the whole have the same tendency to accelerate as to retard the motion. In his view friction should be seen as a time-dependent process of flattening, pressing down asperities, which creates new obstacles in what were cavities before.
Arthur Morrin (1833) developed the concept of sliding versus rolling friction. Osborne Reynolds (1866) derived the equation of viscous flow. This completed the classic empirical model of friction (static, kinetic, and fluid) commonly used today in engineering.
The focus of research during the last century has been to understand the physical mechanisms behind friction. F. Phillip Bowden and David Tabor (1950) showed that at a microscopic level, the actual area of contact between surfaces is a very small fraction of the apparent area. This actual area of contact, caused by “asperities” (roughness) increases with pressure, explaining the proportionality between normal force and frictional force. The development of the atomic force microscope (1986) has recently enabled scientists to study friction at the atomic scale.
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