Influence of Stress Dependence of Lubricant Shear Modulus on Self-Similar Behavior of Stress Time Series

Abstract

Here we consider melting of an ultrathin lubricant layer between two atomically smooth solid surfaces taking into account the stress dependence of the lubricant shear modulus and its decrease with increasing stress (strain). In the adiabatic approximation with the stress relaxation time far longer than strain and temperature relaxation times, a Langevin equation is written and its respective Fokker-Planck equation is derived using the Stratonovich calculus. Phase diagrams for the steady case are presented illustrating the effect of the system parameters on the lubricant behavior. A joint numerical and analytical analysis demonstrates a very close match between probability distributions at different parameters. It is shown that in a limited stress range, a self-similar mode of dry friction is established showing up in self-similar behavior of stress time series.