ABSTRACT
Although frictional forces are familiar to everyone from daily life experiences, little progress has been made in finding an exact physical description of friction since the following phenomenological friction laws were established by Amontons (1699) and Coulomb (1783):
1. Friction is
proportional
to the load (i.e., to the applied normal force). 2. Friction is
independent
of the (apparent) contact area. 3. Sliding friction is
independent
of the sliding velocity.
