A study on kinetic friction: the Timoshenko oscillator

TL;DR

This paper introduces an inexpensive, easy-to-construct Timoshenko oscillator experiment that demonstrates Coulomb's law of kinetic friction and accurately measures the coefficient of kinetic friction using simple materials.

Contribution

It presents a novel, low-cost experimental setup for measuring kinetic friction coefficient through a simple oscillator using common materials.

Findings

Results agree with literature values of k.

The setup is inexpensive and easy to build.

The experiment effectively illustrates Coulomb's law of kinetic friction.

Abstract

Friction is a complex phenomenon that is of paramount importance in everyday life. We present an easy-to-build and inexpensive experiment illustrating Coulomb's law of kinetic friction. The so-called friction, or Timoshenko, oscillator consists of a plate set into periodic motion through the competition between gravity and friction on its rotating supports. The period of such an oscillator gives a measurement of the coefficient of kinetic friction \mu_k between the plate and the supports. Our prototype is mainly composed of a motor, LEGO blocks, and a low-cost microcontroller, but despite its simplicity the results obtained are in good agreement with values of \mu_k found in the literature.