Friction is what keeps us from realizing our goals. It is what compromises all of our plans, sometimes making them unrecognizable. It defies our wish for perfection and constantly surprises us with new elements of resistance. It constitutes the divide between dream and reality.But friction is also what gets us moving, a necessary incentive to achieve progress. Nothing can start if it cannot push off something else. By blocking or delaying the easy solution, friction makes for a richer, more varied world. If it stops schemes from being completely fulfilled, it also stops them form going totally awry.To the modernist project, with its one-sided rationalist pretensions, friction is unambiguously bad?and so it is being disposed of at an increasing speed. The currency markets are one example, cyberspace another. This means less and less time to pause and rethink, while the vulnerability of societies is aggravated. In The Necessity of Friction, scholars tackle this topical and important concept. A number of scientific fields are engaged: physics, philosophy, economics, architecture, organizational theory, artificial intelligence, and others. Together, these contributions form the first modern-day attempt at analyzing the intriguing yet elusive subject of friction as metaphor.

Friction is what keeps us from realizing our goals. It is what compromises all our plans, sometimes making them unrecognizable. It defies our wish for perfection and constantly surprises us with new elements of resistance. It constitutes the divide between dream and reality. But friction is also that which gets us moving, a necessary incentive to achieve progress. Nothing can start if it cannot push off something else. By blocking or delaying the easy solution friction makes for a richer, more varied world. If it stops schemes from being completely fulfilled, it also stops them from going totally awry. To the modernist project with its one-sided rationalist pretensions, friction is unambiguously bad. And so it is being disposed of at an increasing speed. This means less and less time to pause and rethink, while the vulnerability of societies is aggravated. In "The Necessity of Friction" twenty scholars tackle this topical and important concept. A number of scientific fields are engaged: physics, philosophy, economics, architecture, organizational theory, artificial intelligence, and others. Together these contributions form the first modern-day attempt at analyzing the intriguing yet elusive subject of friction.

This report contains guidelines and recommendations for managing and designing for friction on highway pavements. The contents of this report will be of interest to highway materials, construction, pavement management, safety, design, and research engineers, as well as others concerned with the friction and related surface characteristics of highway pavements.

Friction and Wear in Polymer-Based Materials discusses friction and wear problems in polymer-based materials. The book is organized into three parts. The chapters in Part I cover the basic laws of friction and wear in polymer-based materials. Topics covered include frictional interaction during metal-polymer contact and the influence of operating conditions on wear in polymers. The chapters in Part II discuss the structure and frictional properties of polymer-based materials; the mechanism of frictional transfer when a polymer comes into contact with polymers, metals, and other materials; and controlling the frictional properties of polymer materials. Part III is devoted to applications of polymer-based materials in friction assemblies. It covers composite self-lubricating materials and polymer materials for complexly loaded main friction assemblies. This work may prove useful to specialists interested in the problems of using polymer materials. It also aims to stimulate deeper research into the field of friction and wear in polymer-based materials.

This classic work, originally published in 1950, was a landmark in the development of the subject of tribology. When it was first published, one reviewer wrote that it 'marks the beginning of a new epoch in the study of friction and lubrication .... The most interesting and comprehensive work on a single branch of physics I have ever read.' For the 1986 reprint David Tabor wrote a new preface, reviewing developments in the subject in the 36 years since the book first appeared. He has also added an appreciation of the life and work of F.P. Bowden, who died in 1968.

This book deals with the new and now-expanding field of friction, wear, and other surface-related mechanical phenomena for polymers. Polymers have been used in various forms such as bulk, films, and composites in applications where their friction, wear resistance, and other surface-related properties have been effectively utilized. There are also many examples in which polymers have performed extremely well, such as in tyres, shoes, brakes, gears, bearings, small moving parts in electronics and MEMS, cosmetics/hair products, and artificial human joints. Around the world, much research is currently being undertaken to develop new polymers, in different forms, for further enhancing tribological performance and for finding novel applications. Keeping in view the importance of tribology of polymers for research and technology as well as the vast literature that is now available in research papers and review articles, this timely book brings together a wealth of research data for an understanding of the basic principles of the subject.