“Frictionless” and “frictional” ThermoElastic Dynamic Instability (TEDI) of sliding contacts

Recently, we found that a new form of coupled instability, named ThermoElastic Dynamic Instability (TEDI), can occur by interaction between frictional heating and the natural dynamic modes of sliding bodies. This is distinct from the classical dynamic instabilities (DI) which is produced by an interaction between the frictional forces at the sliding interface and the natural modes of vibration of the bodies if the friction coefficient is sufficiently high, and also from ThermoElastic Instability (TEI), which is due to the interaction of frictional heating and thermal expansion, leading for example to low pitched brake noise above some critical speed. This result was relative to an highly idealized system, comprising an elastic layer sliding over a rigid plane including both dynamic and thermoelastic effects, but neglecting shear waves at the interface due to frictional tractions (from which the denomination “frictionless TEDI”). We demonstrate here that including these shear waves destabilizes both the shear and dilatational vibration modes of the system at arbitrarily small friction coefficients and speeds, where DI and TEI are predicted to be stable. A detailed study of the new modes and transient simulations show that for low pressures and high speed, the system tends towards the results of the previous model (“frictionless TEDI”), i.e. the tendency to a state in which the layer bounces over the plane, with alternating periods of sliding contact and separation. In the case of low speeds and high pressures, viceversa, the system is dominated by the modes near the resonance of the shear and dilatational modes, with a resulting complex behaviour, but generally leading to stick-slip regimes, reducing the jumping mode of “frictionless TEDI”, because stick reduces or stops frictional heating production.     

The thermoelastic Aldo contact model with frictional heating

In the study of the essential features of thermoelastic contact, Comninou and Dundurs (J. Therm. Stresses 3 (1980) 427) devised a simplified model, the so-called “Aldo model”, where the full 3D body is replaced by a large number of thin rods normal to the interface and insulated between each other, and the system was further reduced to 2 rods by Barber's Conjecture (ASME J. Appl. Mech. 48 (1981) 555). They studied in particular the case of heat flux at the interface driven by temperature differences of the bodies, and opposed by a contact resistance, finding possible multiple and history dependent solutions, depending on the imposed temperature differences.The Aldo model is here extended to include the presence of frictional heating. It is found that the number of solutions of the problem is still always odd, and Barber's graphical construction and the stability analysis of the previous case with no frictional heating can be extended. For any given imposed temperature difference, a critical speed is found for which the uniform pressure solution becomes non-unique and/or unstable. For one direction of the temperature difference, the uniform pressure solution is non-unique before it becomes unstable. When multiple solutions occur, outermost solutions (those involving only one rod in contact) are always stable.A full numerical analysis has been performed to explore the transient behaviour of the system, in the case of two rods of different size. In the general case of N rods, Barber's conjecture is shown to hold since there can only be two stable states for all the rods, and the reduction to two rods is always possible, a posteriori.     

Thermo-elastic dynamic instability (TEDI) in frictional sliding of two elastic half-spaces

In some simplified 1D models, we recently studied the coupling of TEI (thermoelastic instability) and DI (dynamic instability), finding that thermal effects can render unstable the otherwise neutrally stable natural elastodynamic modes of the system, giving rise to a new family of instability which we called TEDI.Here, we study the general case of two sliding elastic half-planes, finding again a relatively weak coupling between thermal and dynamic effects, and the general family of instability TEDI class is found to modify both the otherwise separated TEI and DI classes. The growth factor, the phase velocity and the migrating speeds of the perturbations are wavelength-dependent, and it is difficult to give a complete picture given the high number of materials’ parameters, and the dependence on speed, friction coefficient, and the underlying uniform pressure. However, a set of results are given for “large” and “small” mismatch of shear wave speeds in the materials, and as a function of (i) friction coefficient; (ii) sliding speed V₀; (iii) wavenumber parameter γ. In the case of small mismatch, generalized Rayleigh waves exists already under frictionless conditions, the critical f for instability is zero. DI dominates over TEI typically for large wavenumbers, where the growth factors increase without limit and hence become eventually meaningless, requiring regularizations for example with rate-state dependent friction laws. TEI growth factors vice versa have a maximum at a certain wavenumber and therefore are always well posed. Larger coupling effects are noticed for two materials with large mismatch, but significantly only for sliding speeds comparable with the wave speed. In general, TEI growth factors increase with speed, whereas DI growth factors increase with speed for similar materials and decrease when the mismatch between materials is large.