Experimental Study of the Plastic Interaction of Model Surface Asperities during Sliding

The paper describes an experimental study of the plastic interaction of triangular shaped lead model asperities deformed under conditions of plane strain. The investigation yields values of the normal and tangential force variations throughout the junction interaction and details of the plastic deformation particularly in relation to junction growth. A number of asperity interfacial conditions are considered ranging from complete adhesion to very low shear strengths achieved using p.t.f.e. strip. The experimental results are compared with an earlier theoretical solution to this problem and show reasonable agreement with the theoretical predictions. In particular it is shown that the normal force, which is usually compressive, may become tensile for conditions of high adhesion between the asperities. This leads to very high values of the macroscopic friction coefficient such as occur in hard vacuum situations. The experimental results for the various surface conditions show sufficient agreement with theoretical predictions to justify the use of this type of theoretical approach for the wider study of the friction and wear of mating surfaces.