Collision-enhanced friction of a bouncing ball on a rough vibrating surface

• Published in: Scientific reports Vol. 11; no. 1; p. 442
• Main Authors: Smith, N. D., Swift, M. R., Smith, M. I.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 11-01-2021; Nature Publishing Group; Nature Portfolio
• Subjects: 639/301/923; 639/766/530; Equilibrium; Experiments; Friction; Humanities and Social Sciences; multidisciplinary; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Simulation; Sliding friction; Velocity
• ISSN: 2045-2322; 2045-2322
• DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-80067-w

We describe experiments and simulations to investigate the dynamics of a ball bouncing on a rough vibrating surface. Directly measuring the impulse due to each bounce we find that the frictional interaction with the surface is strongly enhanced near to the side wall. The enhanced dissipation arises as a consequence of the coupling between the collision, rotation and surface friction. This dissipation, which for our experimental conditions was estimated to be up to three times larger than the more obvious inelastic collision, can result in an enhanced probability density near boundaries and particle–particle spatial correlations. Our findings imply that the effective particle collision properties cannot be considered independently of the surface’s frictional properties.