Coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulation on friction behaviors of textured ag-coating under vacuum and microgravity environments

Adhesive effects in vacuum and disturbance-induced impact in microgravity make the friction different from the traditional theory. In this paper, an impact sliding contact model is developed by coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations under the vacuum and microgravity environments. Textured surfaces are designed, and the effects of texture parameters on friction forces are investigated. The results show that the friction forces could be underestimated if the impact is ignored. Compared with a smooth surface, the textured surfaces can improve friction behaviors during impact sliding contact process. The average friction forces are increased as the increase of the texture width. The textured surface with 0° orientation produces a lower average friction force than other orientations and textured surface with rectangular shape shows the optimum friction behaviors.