A novel dynamic dry friction model for applications in mechanical dynamical systems

This work presents a novel continuously differentiable, dynamic dry friction model, with dependence on normal contact force, slip velocity, and static and dynamic coefficients of friction. The state-of-the-art, Brown and McPhee friction model depends on transitional velocity, which is an empirical parameter. A limitation with this model is that there is no generic approach to select the optimal value for the transitional velocity for a certain application. The simulation results presented in this work highlight the sensitivity of friction force with transitional velocity in Brown and McPhee’s model to obtain smooth solutions, which are supportive in control system applications. It is because control systems require jitter-free signals in order to save costs on low-pass filters. The proposed model overcomes such empirical dependence on transition velocity through a combination of an iterative methodology and an empirical parameterization. In this article, a comprehensive analysis of the proposed friction model and the contributing parameters is carried out. The algorithm to implement the proposed friction model is elaborated. The proposed friction model is then simulated and compared against Brown and McPhee’s model. using a stick-slip benchmark problem. Furthermore, the proposed force model is applied to two spatial multibody systems formulated using index 0 tangent space differential-algebraic equations. The results demonstrate how the proposed friction model can be employed in dynamical mechanical systems. The independence on transitional velocity in the proposed friction model is observed to be effective for obtaining smooth solutions that make it suitable for control system applications.