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Abstract This work examines the effect of environmental humidity on rate-and-state friction behavior of nanoscale silica-silica nanoscale contacts in an atomic force microscope, particularly, its effect on frictional ageing and velocity-weakening vs. strengthening friction from 10 nm/s to 100 μm/s sliding velocities. At extremely low humidities ($$\ll 1\% RH$$ ), ageing is nearly absent for up to 100 s of nominally stationary contact, and friction is strongly velocity-strengthening. This is consistent with dry interfacial friction, where thermal excitations help overcome static friction at low sliding velocities. At higher humidity levels (10–40% RH), ageing becomes pronounced and is accompanied by much higher kinetic friction and velocity-weakening behavior. This is attributed to water-catalyzed interfacial Si–O-Si bond formation. At the highest humidities examined (> 40% RH), ageing subsides, kinetic friction drops to low levels, and friction is velocity-strengthening again. These responses are attributed to intercalated water separating the interfaces, which precludes interfacial bonding. The trends in velocity-dependent friction are reproduced and explained using a computational multi-bond model. Our model explicitly simulates bond formation and bond-breaking, and the passivation and reactivation of reaction sites across the interface during sliding, where the activation energies for interfacial chemical reactions are dependent on humidity. These results provide potential insights into nanoscale mechanisms that may contribute to the humidity dependence observed in prior macroscale rock friction studies. They also provide a possible microphysical foundation to understand the role of water in interfacial systems with water-catalyzed bonding reactions, and demonstrate a profound change in the interfacial physics near and above saturated humidity conditions.
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This content will become publicly available on March 31, 2026
Microparticle impact–induced bond strength in metals peaks with velocity
Supersonic impact of metallic microparticles onto metallic substrates generates extreme interfacial deformation and high contact pressures, enabling solid-state metallic bonding. Although higher impact velocities are generally believed to improve bond quality and mechanical properties in materials formed by supersonic impact deposition, here we report a peak in bond strength for single microparticle impact bonding, followed by a decline at higher impact velocities. Our in situ micromechanical measurements of interfacial strength for Al microparticles bonded to Al substrates reveal a three-fold increase from the critical bonding velocity (800 m/s) to a peak strength around 1,060 m/s. Interestingly, further increase in impact velocity results in a rapid decline in local interfacial strength. The decline continues up to the highest velocity studied, 1,337 m/s, which is well below the threshold required to induce melting or erosion. We show that a mechanistic transition from material strengthening to intensified elastic recovery is responsible for the peak strength in impact-induced bonding, with evidence linking the intensified elastic recovery to adiabatic softening at high impact velocities. Beyond 1,000 m/s for Al, interfacial damage induced by the intensified elastic recovery offsets the strength gain from higher impact velocities, resulting in a net decline in interfacial strength. This mechanistic understanding shall offer insights into the optimal design of processes that rely on impact bonding.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2145326
- PAR ID:
- 10580015
- Publisher / Repository:
- PNAS
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Volume:
- 122
- Issue:
- 14
- ISSN:
- 0027-8424
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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