title: Onset of incommensurate interfacial instability in a minimal model of dry friction.
abstract: We present a minimal model of dry friction between two incommensurate interfaces sliding at high relative velocity. Many of the features of the friction force for the full two-dimensional many-body dynamical system-particularly in the sub-critical velocity regime-are captured by our one-dimensional Einstein model, where the motion of a typical interfacial atom is constrained to be vertical to the sliding plane. Beyond the linear response of force versus sliding velocity, the anharmonic Einstein model predicts a doublet resonance peak, whereupon a catastrophe in the model signals the onset of a plastic deformation mechanism for frictional sliding, namely, the instability of the interface. Higher velocities than this critical value require a much more sophisticated description of the production and coalescence of dislocations into a microstructure.
authors.affiliation: Theoretical Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA.
authors.forename: Brad Lee
authors.initials: BL
authors.lastname: Holian
authors.forename: James E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Hammerberg