Robotics
Researchers at Kanazawa University have recently developed a friction reduction system based on a lubricating effect, which could have interesting soft robotics applications. Their system, presented in a paper published in ...
Engineering
Losing your balance and falling does not just happen during icy Boston winters. The slip resistance of your shoes can determine how well you walk on different surfaces without losing balance. Shoe grips increase friction ...
Aug 20, 2020
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87
Engineering
Inspired by the Japanese art of paper cutting, MIT engineers have designed a friction-boosting material that could be used to coat the bottom of your shoes, giving them a stronger grip on ice and other slippery surfaces.
Jun 1, 2020
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171
Engineering
A new insight into how leaves transform into slippery layers on railway lines, causing delays for passengers and costing the rail industry millions of pounds every year, has been revealed by engineers at the University of ...
Feb 14, 2024
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80
Engineering
Pumping liquids may seem like a solved problem but optimizing the process is still an area of active research. Any pumping application—from industrial scales to heating systems at home—would benefit from a reduction in ...
Sep 6, 2023
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24
Robotics
Soft robots, or those made with materials like rubber, gels and cloth, have advantages over their harder, heavier counterparts, especially when it comes to tasks that require direct human interaction. Robots that could safely ...
Dec 1, 2022
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75
Robotics
High-fidelity touch has the potential to significantly expand the scope of what we expect from computing devices, making new remote sensory experiences possible. The research on these advancements, led by a pair of researchers ...
Mar 3, 2022
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31
Robotics
Just a few years ago, "haptics" (interaction by touching) was a subject studied in only a few labs around the world. As it became more widely used in touch screens and in the automotive industry, the number of researchers ...
Jul 29, 2019
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149
Engineering
Researchers have resolved the complex gas dynamics that occur upon opening a champagne bottle (or, more generally, a bottle containing a pressurized liquid and gas) and these dynamics' interaction with the bottle's cork stopper. ...
Jan 23, 2024
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45
Engineering
It might look like some bizarre alien artwork but this is actually a frictionless gear mechanism, 3D-printed all in one in high-performance stainless steel, designed to enable the precise rotation of items such as satellite ...
Jul 21, 2023
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12
Friction is the force resisting the relative lateral (tangential) motion of solid surfaces, fluid layers, or material elements in contact. It is usually subdivided into several varieties:
Friction is not a fundamental force, as it is derived from electromagnetic force between charged particles, including electrons, protons, atoms, and molecules, and so cannot be calculated from first principles, but instead must be found empirically. When contacting surfaces move relative to each other, the friction between the two surfaces converts kinetic energy into thermal energy, or heat. Contrary to earlier explanations, kinetic friction is now understood not to be caused by surface roughness but by chemical bonding between the surfaces. Surface roughness and contact area, however, do affect kinetic friction for micro- and nano-scale objects where surface area forces dominate inertial forces.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
