Effect of roughness on stiction

In this paper, the viscoelastic material was used to investigate the effect of roughness on stiction. The material is chosen because it is highly deformable so that contact during friction can be fully elastic. The soft surfaces were prepared by casting the silicon material on metal surfaces having smooth and unidirectional grooved texture. Two tests were conducted, indentation and friction, to find out the effect of roughness on parameters of normal contact stiffness, friction force and the difference between static and kinetic friction coefficient, μs-μk. As the results, it is found that all parameters are related to the surface roughness. Smoother surface tends to have a higher value of normal contact stiffness and higher value of friction force thus resulting in a larger difference between the static and kinetic coefficient of friction. Since the value of μs-μk is commonly related to the stick-slip motion, the smoother surface tends to have a larger propensity of stiction. It is shown by the result that the texture can reduce the stiction because it reduces the value of normal contact stiffness, resulting in a lower value of μs-μk.