Panel Discussion “Fundamental Aspects of Rubber Friction”

Abstract

Well, so far we have talked about smooth spheres and smooth surfaces and the talks covered different areas. What we try to do now is unify them in some way and provide a discussion which may provoke some arguments, but try to get some consensus. I think we will start in the same order as the speakers. Starting with Prof. Grosch, on your experiments on ice; as we go to the conditions for reproducibility with ice friction, your surfaces are smooth, extremely smooth, etc., and you depart from the realistic situation which we must eventually face, the tire-road situation. I would like Dr. Grosch to comment first on the conditions for this reproducibility. There is some, I would not say controversy, but there is not quite an agreement on what kind of conditions experimentally one should be sure of in order to get this reproducibility.