Critical Velocity of Controllability of Sliding Friction by Normal Oscillations for an Arbitrary Linear Rheology

Abstract

The application of ultrasonic vibrations is an established procedure in industry in order to significantly reduce and control sliding friction. One of the main characteristics of this phenomenon is that, beyond a certain critical sliding velocity, the friction is no longer controllable—although oscillations are still being externally applied. an a previous series of related studies, closed-form solutions of the critical velocity have been derived with respect to pure elastic and specific viscoelastic models. In the present paper we present a universal formula of the critical velocity which is valid for arbitrary linear rheology. The derivation relies on the same theoretical basis of the previous studies, where the reduction of friction is ascribed to a stick-slip motion of the contact. Therefore, all previous results represent limiting and special cases of this universal equation. In the second part of this paper we pursue the numerical analysis of the previous studies by investigating the reduction of friction for a viscoelastic Kelvin material for the first time.