Acoustics of friction
a)
Adnan Akay
Mechanical Engineering Department, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213
Received 20 July 2001; revised 7 January 2002; accepted 10 January 2002
This article presents an overview of the acoustics of friction by covering friction sounds,friction-induced vibrations and waves in solids, and descriptions of other frictional phenomenarelated to acoustics. Friction, resulting from the sliding contact of solids, often gives rise to diverseforms of waves and oscillations within solids which frequently lead to radiation of sound to thesurrounding media. Among the many everyday examples of friction sounds, violin music and brakenoise in automobiles represent the two extremes in terms of the sounds they produce and themechanisms by which they are generated. Of the multiple examples of friction sounds in nature,insect sounds are prominent. Friction also provides a means by which energy dissipation takes placeat the interface of solids. Friction damping that develops between surfaces, such as joints andconnections, in some cases requires only microscopic motion to dissipate energy. Modeling of friction-induced vibrations and friction damping in mechanical systems requires an accuratedescription of friction for which only approximations exist. While many of the components thatcontribute to friction can be modeled, computational requirements become prohibitive for theircontemporaneous calculation. Furthermore, quantification of friction at the atomic scale stillremains elusive. At the atomic scale, friction becomes a mechanism that converts the kinetic energyassociated with the relative motion of surfaces to thermal energy. However, the description of theconversion to thermal energy represented by a disordered state of oscillations of atoms in a solid isstill not well understood. At the macroscopic level, friction interacts with the vibrations and wavesthat it causes. Such interaction sets up a feedback between the friction force and waves at thesurfaces, thereby making friction and surface motion interdependent. Such interdependence formsthe basis for friction-induced motion as in the case of ultrasonic motors and other examples. Last,when considered phenomenologically, friction and boundary layer turbulence exhibit analogousproperties and, when compared, each may provide clues to a better understanding of theother. ©
2002 Acoustical Society of America.
DOI: 10.1121/1.1456514
PACS numbers: 43.10.Ln, 43.40.At, 43.40.Ga
ADP
I. INTRODUCTION
Friction develops between sliding surfaces regardless of the magnitude of relative motion between them. Always act-ing as a resistance to relative motion, friction fulfills a dualrole by transmitting energy from one surface to the other andby dissipating energy of relative motion. The physical pro-cesses that contribute to friction have a wide range of lengthand time scales. At the length scale that corresponds to theinteratomic distance in solids, which forms the upper limit of acoustics, friction acts as a dissipation mechanism, convert-ing kinetic energy to thermal energy. This means of conver-sion, arguably the most fundamental aspect of friction, is anacoustical process that involves oscillations of atoms andrelates to the first principles.In practice, at longer length scales, the dual roles of friction, both transmitting and dissipating energy, almost al-ways coexist. The conditions under which friction providesmore energy to a system than that system can dissipate con-stitute the basis for most of the instabilities observed infriction-excited vibrations and a prime source of resultingsound radiation.Examples of sounds that result from friction-excited vi-brations and waves appear frequently. They include squeaksand squeals in the interior of automobiles, the squeal of sneakers on parquet floors, the squeak of snow when walkingon it, door hinges, chalk on a blackboard, turkey frictioncalls that hunters use, aircraft and automotive brake squeals,belts on pulleys, rail-wheel noise, and retarders in rail yards.These and many others typify the annoying aspects of fric-tion sounds. String instruments exemplify the musical di-mensions of friction sounds.The acoustics of friction extends beyond noise and mu-sic and includes such phenomena as friction damping,friction-assisted assembly, and friction motion. Contactdamping of inserted blades in gas turbines and braided wiresexemplify friction dampers. In manufacturing assembly pro-cesses, friction has an important role, such as in vibratoryconveyors and in reducing friction during the cold drawingof wires by vibrating them. Friction motion refers to vibro-motion devices such as the ultrasonic motor that relies onbending waves and friction to develop precise motion. A his-torical example demonstrated by Tyndall
1
shown in Fig. 1suggests that rubbing a glass tube along its length can break off rings at its free end.
Admittedly, the author has beenunsuccessful trying to re-enact this experiment.
These ex-amples and others involve both acoustics and friction. Thisarticle considers acoustics
a
A portion of the contents of this article was presented as the 1999 RayleighLecture on 19 November 1999 at the International Mechanical EngineeringConference in Nashville, Tennessee.
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and friction each in its broader meaning, rather than theirconventional engineering implications, while keeping the fo-cus narrow to consider aspects of friction relevant to acous-tics. As such, the article leaves out many rigid-body oscilla-tion problems associated with friction-induced instabilities.A major challenge in studying the acoustics of frictionrelates to the ability to predict sound and vibration responsesof systems subject to friction. The challenge rests with themodeling of friction as well as the modeling of real boundaryconditions that often involve friction. A friction force inter-acts with and often depends on the response of the systemwithin which it develops. Such interaction sets up a feedback between the friction force and the waves on the surfaces,making them interdependent. In addition to such dynamiceffects with short time scales, friction also undergoeschanges over a longer time that correspond to, for example,the deformation and wear of surfaces. Consequently, friction,when acting on even a simple and an otherwise linear sys-tem, can still produce very complicated responses.This paper treats several aspects of the acoustics of fric-tion. The next section describes friction-induced vibrationsand sounds starting with several pedagogical examples toillustrate fundamental concepts. It follows these with de-tailed descriptions of two engineering applications that in-volve complex friction and vibration interaction, namelybowed string and brake noise. The second section concludeswith examples of sounds in nature. The third section of thepaper treats macroscopic interactions between friction andvibrations to demonstrate friction-induced motion, followedin Sec. IV by a description of friction-induced damping phe-nomena. The paper then presents a brief review of the issuespertinent to measuring and modeling of friction in dynamicsystems, followed by a description of friction and its compo-nents which includes a description of friction dissipation interms of atomic oscillations. The final part of the paperdraws an analogy between two little-understood phenomena:friction-excited vibrations in solid mechanics and boundary-layer turbulence in fluid mechanics.
II. FRICTION-EXCITED VIBRATIONS AND SOUNDS
The range of sounds a bow and a string can producebespeaks the extent of the many different forms frictionsounds may take. Friction sounds are rarely, if at all, ergodicand stationary. Rather, they are mostly unsteady or transient.Sounds emanate from either one or both components of thefriction pair or from other parts of the system to which thefriction pair transmits unsteady forces. In some cases, tran-sient radiation originates from sudden deformation of thesurfaces near the contact areas, which may also be accompa-nied by waves that develop within the components underfriction excitation. Rubbing of viscoelastic materials oftenexhibits a transient sound radiation, as in the case of the heelof a sneaker sliding on a polished parquet floor. Rubbing aninflated balloon with a finger also produces a transient soundfrom near the contact area, in this case, followed by apseudo-steady-state radiation. Similarly, rubbing the surfaceof a small (
D
1 cm) steel ball with a moist finger alsodemonstrates radiation from local acceleration near a contact.Since the fundamental natural frequency of the ball is in theultrasonic range, the sound produced in the sonic range re-sults solely from the rapid movement of the contact area of the finger and rigid-body radiation of the ball.Sliding, whether through a continuous or transient con-tact, is an unsteady process. Transient sliding, the source of many squeaks and squeals, develops intermittently or cycli-cally, as in
spiccato
bowing of violin that requires a slidingstroke of a bow onto and off a string. Continuous sliding, onthe other hand, can produce a broad range of responses in-cluding transient response, for example, by a slight variationin the normal contact load.For a particular friction pair, the differences in thesounds they radiate, and their governing vibrations, largelyarise from the variation of contact forces at the interfacewhere the sliding surfaces meet. In turn, contact forces de-pend on the interface properties and the external forces thatmaintain the sliding contact. In cases where the friction pairis attached to other components, the response of the entiresystem can also modify the interface behavior and thus theresulting acoustic response.The strength of contact governs the type of waves andoscillations that develop during sliding. Weak contacts, witheffects localized to the interface region, produce response ineach component at its own natural frequencies, nearly inde-pendently of other components. Weak contacts that involverough surfaces can produce light impulses as asperities comeinto contact, and again produce a response at the naturalfrequencies of each component. Such sliding conditions of-
FIG. 1. Tyndall’s experiment breaking rings off a glass tube by friction.From Ref. 1.
1526 J. Acoust. Soc. Am., Vol. 111, No. 4, April 2002 Adnan Akay: Tutorial Paper—Acoustics of friction
ten produce sounds, referred to here as roughness noise orsurface noise. For example, two pieces of sandpaper, whenrubbed against each other, produce a random sound from thevibrating paper that results from the interaction among thegranules on opposing surfaces. Another example of surfaceor roughness noise involves bending waves of a rod with arough surface when lightly rubbed against another rough sur-face. Similarly, corrugated surfaces sliding over each otherunder light normal loads produce impulsive contact forcesthat develop at the ‘‘corrugation frequency’’ with compo-nents in both tangential and normal directions to the inter-face. Such contact forces produce response in each directionat a combination of corrugation frequency and natural fre-quencies of each component.When sliding takes place under strong contact condi-tions, the influence of the contact force reaches beyond theinterface and friction; the friction pair becomes a coupledsystem and produces a more complex and often nonlinearresponse. Under such conditions, instabilities develop andfrequently lead to a condition called mode lock-in, where thecoupled system responds at one of its fundamental frequen-cies and its harmonics.
2
Development of mode lock-in andthe selection of the mode at which the system responds de-pends on the normal load, sliding velocity, and the contactgeometry.The external normal force that maintains contact be-tween surfaces not only influences the strength of the con-tact, and thus the friction force, but it can also modify thedynamic response of the components under friction. As dis-cussed later, the splitting of modes in beams and disks is butone example that also exhibits the influence of the normalforce.
A. Pedagogical examples
The following examples present a hierarchy of frictionsounds that helps illustrate the fundamental concepts associ-ated with friction-excited vibrations and the ensuing soundradiation described above. They start with the simple casesinvolving only two components with distinctly different im-pedances followed by those that have comparable imped-ances. In the former cases, response of the system is closer tothe component with ‘‘weaker’’ impedance, whereas in thelatter, system response is different than that of either compo-nent.
1. Wineglass
It is well-known that rubbing the rim of a glass, prefer-ably with a moist finger, makes it radiate sound from itsbending waves at one of its natural frequencies and itsharmonics.
3,4
In cases of crystal glasses with very small in-ternal damping, even light rubbing of the glass surface pro-duces a sound. Friction, although applied to the rim in thecircumferential direction, excites bending waves. When ap-proximated as a cylinder of height
H
and radius
R
that has arigid base, its fundamental vibration frequency is given as
5
0
h
g
R
3
E
g
5
g
1
43
R H
4
1/2
,
1
where
h
g
,
g
, and
E
g
represent the thickness, density, andYoung’s modulus of glass cylinder, respectively. Rubbing aglass around its perimeter can also excite the torsional oscil-lations of the wine glass about its axis of symmetry, but at amuch higher frequency than the bending naturalfrequencies.
5
A different mechanism takes place when the rim of aglass is gently rubbed in the radial direction by a dry finger.This light radial application of friction to the edge of theglass primarily excites the bending waves of the glass wallby light impulses. Impulses develop at a corrugation fre-quency corresponding to the speed and the spacing betweenridges on the fingertip, and sometimes described as the‘‘picket fence’’ or ‘‘washboard’’ effect. As illustrated in Fig.2, such impulses excite the natural frequencies of the glass.A more complex response results from exciting a wine-glass with a violin bow applied radially to its rim. The re-sponse usually, but not always, shows a dominance by onlyone of the natural frequencies of the glass and its harmonics.Frequently, the first or the second mode appears dependingon the application of the bow. By imposing a nodal point onthe surface of the glass, for example with a finger tip, eventhe third mode and its integer harmonics can result from aseemingly identical application of the bow. This behavior,where the bow and the glass respond, in this case, at or neara particular natural frequency of the glass to the exclusion of its other modes, illustrates the concept of mode lock-in de-scribed earlier.
2
The presence of water in the glass helps demonstrate thecorresponding mode shapes of the glass, similar to Galileo’sobservations
6
cited in Ref. 7
. Under high excitation ampli-tudes, water in the glass shoots up, similar to the Chinesesprouting fish basin, which consists of a pot, usually bronze,that fountains the water it is filled with when rubbed at itshandles.
2. Cantilever beam and plate
Another demonstration of mode lock-in results from ap-plying a violin bow to the free edge of a cantilever beam ora plate. Chladni also happened to demonstrate modelock-in
8,9
when presenting the first visualization of modeshapes in 1787 by sprinkling sand on a plate and bowing itsfree edge to create different mode shapes.Similarly, bowing the free end of a cantilever beam canalso produce mode lock-in. Depending on the application of the bow, the spectra of bending vibrations and radiated sounddisplay either the first, the second, or even the third naturalfrequency of the beam and its harmonics. In these experi-ments, only infrequently does more than one natural fre-quency appear simultaneously. Mostly, the bow and beamlock into a particular mode and oscillate in a rather stablemanner. Because bow impedance in the direction of excita-tion differs significantly from that of the beam, the dynamicsof the two does not critically interact, and the beam respondsat one of its natural frequencies with corresponding harmon-ics, as shown in the radiation spectrum given in Fig. 3.
3. Cuica
The cuica, the Brazilian friction drum, presents an ex-ample of a friction system in which friction excitation takes
1527J. Acoust. Soc. Am., Vol. 111, No. 4, April 2002 Adnan Akay: Tutorial Paper—Acoustics of friction
place away from the radiation source. The cuica consists of acylindrical metal shell covered at one end with a membrane,as in a drum. Inside the cylinder, a thin bamboo stick sus-pends from the center of the membrane where one end of thestick is tied with a knot. The player continuously strokes thestick with a piece of moist cloth, thereby exciting the mem-brane at its center with the resulting stick–slip motion. Theplayer produces music by controlling the radiation responseby judiciously placing a finger on various spots on the mem-brane.Mechanically, the operation of the cuica has similaritiesto that of a bowed string instrument. In the case of the cuica,the bamboo stick vibrates the membrane as a bow does witha string, and the player’s finger on the membrane selects themode of vibration as does placing a finger on the string.
4. Extraction of a nail from wood
Extracting a nail from a plank of wood presents anotherinstructive example of friction, stick-and-slip, and frictionsounds. Pulling a nail exhibits stick–slip if it is extractedfrom hard wood. Both the hardness of the wood and theaverage diameter of the nail determines the pressure, andthus the friction force, on the surface of the nail. Larger-sizenails produce more friction force and sounds. Speed withwhich a nail is extracted also affects the dynamic response,but probably because of the temperature effects. Rapid ex-traction of a nail can easily char the adjacent surface of thewood and change the characteristics of friction.
5. Smooth versus corrugated surfaces
Two simple experiments using polished and corrugatedsurfaces can demonstrate the effects of surface texture onsound radiation from friction excitation. Rubbing along thelength of a steel bar with a smooth surface produces longi-tudinal vibrations and radiates sound at its fundamental fre-quencies as determined by the position at which the bar isconstrained. Friction dominates the dynamic component of the contact force without a significant perturbation of its nor-mal component. The friction force, in this case, travels alongthe rod and gives rise to longitudinal waves, modeled as
E
2
u
x
2
2
u
t
2
1
A
F
N
x
Vt
.
2
The use of a smooth rod excited by friction dates back to1866, when it became the excitation source in what is nowknown as the Kundt’s tube to measure the speed of sound. Inthat experiment, longitudinal waves in the stroked rod vi-
FIG. 2. Demonstration of mode lock-in with a wine glass half-filled with water.
a
Frequency response;
b
response to excitation to a finger rubbed alongits edge;
c
excitation by dry finger across its rim;
d
–
f
response to excitation with a bow;
e
–
f
show the effect of placing a finger on different positionson the glass to suppress the other modes thus creating a mode lock-in.
1528 J. Acoust. Soc. Am., Vol. 111, No. 4, April 2002 Adnan Akay: Tutorial Paper—Acoustics of friction