Molecular dynamics simulations of mixed lubrication with smooth particle post-processing.

A post-processing method for molecular dynamics (MD) simulations of friction based on the smooth particle approach is proposed, allowing--among other features--the introduction and evaluation of a solid-solid contact area arising due to direct asperity interaction. In order to illustrate the feasibility of this scheme, a large number of MD calculations of lubricated nanotribological systems with various asperity geometries and carefully selected numbers of lubricant molecules were carried out and analysed. In this manner, it is shown that the friction force as a function of load agrees very well with a three-parameter friction law which, in addition to the adhesion- and the load-controlled terms, contains a load-independent offset.