eprintid: 1979 rev_number: 6 eprint_status: archive userid: 56 dir: disk0/00/00/19/79 datestamp: 2013-11-29 13:51:34 lastmod: 2014-10-09 09:20:25 status_changed: 2013-11-29 13:51:34 type: article metadata_visibility: show creators_name: Carpinteri, Alberto creators_name: Paggi, Marco creators_name: Zavarise, Giorgio creators_id: creators_id: marco.paggi@imtlucca.it creators_id: title: Cusp-catastrophe interpretation of the stick-slip behaviour of rough surfaces ispublished: pub subjects: TJ divisions: CSA full_text_status: none keywords: Contact Mechanics, rough surfaces, mechanical instability, stick-slip, contact loss. abstract: The stick-slip instability is a typical manifestation of the nonlinearity of the frictional response of rough surfaces. As recently demonstrated by several researchers, the problem of contact loss is also inherently connected to the stick-slip instability and it has been detected both in elastically soft materials, such as rubber or gelatine, and in elastic stiff materials, such as for earthquake faults. Treating the problem of tangential contact in the framework of micromechanical contact models, the effect of the phenomenon of contact loss on the micro-slip behavior of rough surfaces is herein investigated. To this aim, the stick and slip components of the total applied tangential force and of the total real contact area are properly determined as functions of the total applied tangential force. A comparison with the behavior of smooth surfaces, such as spheres, cylinders and flat surfaces, is presented. Then, simulating the problem of tangential loading followed by a reduction of the applied normal force, it will be shown that the phenomenon of contact loss gives rise to energy release due to snap-back instability in the diagram relating the tangential force to the sliding displacement. This result provides for the very first time an explanation to the phenomenon of stick-slip according to the Catastrophe Theory, in close analogy with the cusp-catastrophe instability of Mode I crack propagation in cohesive solids. date: 2009 date_type: published publication: Computer Modeling in Engineering and Sciences volume: 53 number: 3 publisher: Tech Science Press pagerange: 1-23 id_number: 10.3970/cmes.2009.053.303 refereed: TRUE issn: 1526-1492 official_url: http://www.techscience.com/doi/10.3970/cmes.2009.053.303.html citation: Carpinteri, Alberto and Paggi, Marco and Zavarise, Giorgio Cusp-catastrophe interpretation of the stick-slip behaviour of rough surfaces. Computer Modeling in Engineering and Sciences, 53 (3). pp. 1-23. ISSN 1526-1492 (2009)