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Rolling friction of a viscous sphere on a hard plane

Nikolai V. Brilliantov·Thorsten Poeschel
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Abstract

A first-principle continuum-mechanics expression for the rolling friction coefficient is obtained for the rolling motion of a viscoelastic sphere on a hard plane. It relates the friction coefficient to the viscous and elastic constants of the sphere material. The relation obtained refers to the case when the deformation of the sphere $ξ$ is small, the velocity of the sphere $V$ is much less than the speed of sound in the material and when the characteristic time $ξ/V$ is much larger than the dissipative relaxation times of the viscoelastic material. To our knowledge this is the first ``first-principle'' expression of the rolling friction coefficient which does not contain empirical parameters.

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Nikolai V. Brilliantov, Thorsten Poeschel. 1998-02-01. Rolling friction of a viscous sphere on a hard plane. https://doi.org/10.1209/epl%2Fi1998-00281-7

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