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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

1.1 What is friction? Take this everyday example: when a coffee mug rests on a flat table, the kinetic frictional force is zero. There is no force trying to move the mug across the table, so there is ...

Friction is responsible for about twenty percent of the world energy consumption. The main reason for this is that frictional forces slow down the motion of surfaces in contact: think of the moving ...

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 ...