Normal Load Scaling of Friction in Gemini Hydrogels

Health and physiology are critically dependent on the ability of soft, permeable, and aqueous materials (e.g. cartilage, cells, and extracellular matrix) to provide lubrication over a wide range of speeds and contact stresses. Living cells and tissues present tremendous handling and experimental challenges for fundamental biotribology studies. Synthetic high water content hydrogels, designed to share similar mechanical and transport properties of biomaterials, can provide fundamental insights into the basic dissipative mechanisms associated with aqueous lubrication. Recent studies investigating the response of self-mated (Gemini) hydrogels to a wide range of sliding speeds under constant load conditions revealed transitions in friction behavior that may be associated with polymer relaxation time and contact time for a surface mesh during sliding (mesh size divided by the sliding speed). Here, the extent to which contact pressure and contact area affect hydrogel friction behavior was explored by changing the applied load over two orders of magnitude (0.1-20 mN) and the sliding speed over four orders of magnitude (10 μm/s-100 mm/s). Oscillating pin-on-disk microtribological experiments were performed in ultrapure water for Gemini polyacrylamide hydrogels (average mesh size ~7 nm). Friction coefficient decreased across all ranges of sliding speed with increasing applied load, consistent with predictions of contact area scaling non-linearly with applied load and pressure-independent surface shear stresses. The contact area for Gemini hydrogel interfaces under these conditions has been shown to follow Hertzian contact mechanics theory, and supports the scaling of friction coefficient in the speed-independent regime that follows μ ~ Fn−1/3.