Scientists have now uncovered new velocity and temperature-dependent properties of rubber friction on asphalt -- bolstering the idea that an important component of friction originates when chains of ...

For more than 200 years, scientists have argued about a deceptively simple question: why does a sheet of frozen water let us glide, skid and fall so easily. Now a new generation of simulations and ...

(Nanowerk News) For 15 years, scientists have been baffled by the mysterious way water flows through the tiny passages of carbon nanotubes — pipes with walls that can be just one atom thick. The ...

The Saarland researchers reveal that the slipperiness of ice is driven by electrostatic forces, not melting. Water molecules in ice are arranged in a rigid crystal lattice. Each molecule has a ...

The study of tribology, the science of friction, wear and lubrication, has increasingly benefitted from advances in molecular dynamics simulations, providing detailed atomistic insights into the ...

In general, friction between two macroscale surfaces is proportional to normal force. However, the frictional characteristics of nanoscale surfaces cannot be fully described by the framework of ...

The concepts of friction and wear are easy to understand, yet they can interrelate in complex ways within a tribological system (science concerned with interacting surfaces in relative motion ...

Finding the right lubricant for the right purpose is a task that is often extremely important in industry. Not only to reduce friction, overheating and wear, but also to save energy. At TU Wien, the ...

For 15 years, scientists have been baffled by the mysterious way water flows through the tiny passages of carbon nanotubes — pipes with walls that can be just one atom thick. The streams have ...

For nearly two centuries, the world accepted a simple explanation for why ice makes us slip. According to physics textbooks, pressure from a skate, a boot or a tyre melts a microscopic film of water ...