title: Experimental and Theoretical Investigations on the Nanoscale Kinetic Friction in Ambient Environmental Conditions.
abstract: The liquid lubrication, thermolubricity and dynamic lubricity due to mechanical oscillations are investigated with an atomic force microscope in ambient environmental conditions with different relative humidity (RH) levels. Experimental results demonstrate that high humidity at low-temperature regime enhances the liquid lubricity while at high-temperature regime it hinders the effect of the thermolubricity due to the formation of liquid bridges. Friction response to the dynamic lubricity in both high- and low-temperature regimes keeps the same trends, namely the friction force decreases with increasing the amplitude of the applied vibration on the tip regardless of the RH levels. An interesting finding is that for the dynamic lubricity at high temperature, high-humidity condition leads to the friction forces higher than that at low-humidity condition while at low temperature the opposite trend is observed. An extended two-dimensional dynamic model accounting for the RH is proposed to interpret the frictional mechanism in ambient conditions.
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Design and Manufacture of Micro-Nano Biomedical Instruments, Southeast University, Nanjing 211189, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Birahima
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Gueye
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Design and Manufacture of Micro-Nano Biomedical Instruments, Southeast University, Nanjing 211189, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Design and Manufacture of Micro-Nano Biomedical Instruments, Southeast University, Nanjing 211189, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Yujuan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Mechanical Engineering, Jiangsu Key Laboratory for Design and Manufacture of Micro-Nano Biomedical Instruments, Southeast University, Nanjing 211189, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: Yunfei
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Chen
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D004867:Equipment Design; D017276:Friction; D006813:Humidity; D007700:Kinetics; D008153:Lubrication; D018625:Microscopy, Atomic Force / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D036103:Nanotechnology; D013696:Temperature
keywords: Nano friction; adhesion; dynamic lubricity; liquid lubrication; thermolubricity