On the relationship between normal load and friction force in pre-sliding frictional contacts. Part 1: Theoretical analysis

In micro-positioning systems, friction is often the limiting factor for the positioning accuracy. The thorough understanding of the frictional phenomena in sliding contacts is therefore a challenging aim. When a tangential force is exerted to one of a pair of contacting bodies, before an object relatively slides, the pre-sliding regime is crossed. This paper is dedicated to the investigation of the relation between the normal load and the friction force in the pre-sliding regime up to gross sliding. A Maxwell-Slip model strategy is supplied with model parameters, determined by an existing physics-based model. The combination of both models results in frictional hysteresis loops, fully determined by their virgin curve. A sensitivity analysis is carried out to evaluate the influence parameters on the results. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.