Frictional Behavior of the Snake Skin-Inspired Surfaces: Numerical Study

Bio-inspired textures have recently gained much attention due to their unique properties. Understanding the correlation between bio-inspired textures and friction behavior is critical in optimizing friction response. The study investigates the frictional behavior of surfaces inspired by snake skin, when subjected to sliding. A Finite Element (FE) model was implemented using Abaqus/standard software, taking the effect of the bio-inspired texture into consideration. During the test, the rigid ball, with a diameter 10 mm, was alternatively sliding on the texture surface. A normal load of 1 N was applied on the ball. Numerical results obtained were consistent with the experimental results. They have shown the significant effect of the sliding direction on the friction behavior. The results depict the anisotropic behavior of thesnake skin-inspired surface. Indeed, friction coefficient recorded when sliding in the positive direction (µ+) was larger than in the negative (µ−) one. The ratio of frictional anisotropy (i.e., µ+/µ−) is constant (1.77).