Rubber friction on wet and dry road surfaces: the sealing effect
B.N.J. Persson (1,2), U. Tartaglino (1,3,4), O. Albohr (5), E. Tosatti, (2,3,4) ((1) IFF, FZ-Juelich, Germany, (2) ICTP, Trieste, Italy, (3) SISSA,, Trieste, Italy, (4) INFM Democritos, Trieste, Italy, (5) Pirelli Deutschland, AG, Hoechst/Odenwald, Germany)
TL;DR
This paper investigates the reduction in rubber friction on wet surfaces, proposing a novel sealing effect mechanism where water smoothens the substrate, decreasing viscoelastic deformation and thus friction, with applications to tire-road interactions.
Contribution
The study introduces a new explanation for reduced wet rubber friction based on a sealing effect, challenging hydrodynamic assumptions and providing a theoretical framework.
Findings
Rubber friction on wet surfaces is 20-30% lower than on dry surfaces.
The sealing effect reduces substrate roughness, decreasing viscoelastic deformation.
The theory applies to tire-road friction scenarios.
Abstract
Rubber friction on wet rough substrates at low velocities is typically 20-30% smaller than for the corresponding dry surfaces. We show that this cannot be due to hydrodynamics and propose a novel explanation based on a sealing effect exerted by rubber on substrate "pools" filled with water. Water effectively smoothens the substrate, reducing the major friction contribution due to induced viscoelastic deformations of the rubber by surface asperities. The theory is illustrated with applications related to tire-road friction.
Peer Reviews
No public reviews on file for this paper yet. If you reviewed it on a platform where reviews are public (OpenReview, ICLR, NeurIPS, ICML), you can paste yours below so the community can read it here.
Videos
No videos yet. Explain this paper in a talk, walkthrough, or lecture? Add one.