Sliding Friction of Soft Viscoelastic Materials(Current Topics)

Abstract

When soft and sticky materials are slid against a substrate, specific types of sliding behavior are observed. In this study, we conducted sliding friction experiments using a soft and sticky gel-sheet. We found that the system shows regular-irregular transition of the sliding behavior. We also found that the distribution of the size of slip events at small pull velocities obeys a power-law, which is similar to Gutenberg-Richter law for earthquakes.