Thermal Effects on the Friction of Sliding Rough Surfaces

We use large-scale molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to model the sliding of deformable bodies in close contact, where both bodies have self-affine rough surfaces at the atomistic level. We keep both bodies at room temperature, while changing the surface roughness and the applied load. We compared our current results with similar cases at zero Kelvin and find surprisingly that a mild thermal increase from 0 to 300 K of the material enhances friction at the atomic scale.