Resumen de Showing Area Matters: A Work of Friction
Typically, we teach the simplified friction equation of the form Fs= sNfor static friction, where Fsis the maximum static friction, sis the coefficient of static friction, andNis the normal force pressing the surfaces together. However, this is a bit too simplified, and doesnt work well in cases where the surface area is large and the normal force small. Rather, a better model in such cases would be Fs= sNcsA, where csis a new coefficient for the static friction due to contact area.1Of course, it would help for students to be able to quantitatively measure this, and thats where this paper comes in.
