Viscous friction was discussed before, where a lubricant would provide a damping effect between two moving objects. In cases where there is no lubricant, and the touching surfaces are dry, dry coulomb friction may result. In this case the surfaces will stick in place until a maximum force is overcome. After that the object will begin to slide and a constant friction force will result.
Figure 9.32 Dry friction shows the classic model for (dry Coulomb) friction. The force on the horizontal axis is the force applied to the friction surfaces while the vertical axis is the resulting friction force. Beneath the slip force the object will stay in place. When the slip force is exceeded the object will begin to move, and the resulting kinetic friction force will be relatively constant. (Note: If the object begins to travel much faster then the kinetic friction force will decrease.) It is common to forget that friction forces are bidirectional, but it always opposes the applied force or motion. The friction force is a function of the coefficient of friction and the normal force across the contact surfaces. The coefficient of friction is a function of the materials, surface texture and surface shape.
Many systems use kinetic friction to dissipate energy from a system as heat, sound and vibration.
