A Dislocation-based Model for the Dynamics of Sliding Precursors

The onset of dynamic friction plays an important role in the study of sliding interfaces. Previously, the sliding precursors in the form of crack-like defects have been detected in experiments and their strain fields have been measured to be comparable to those of moving cracks. In the present work, we considered the dynamics of sliding precursors by solving the elastic problem due to a moving dislocation in a half-plane and the transient emission of a dislocation at the edge. It has been found that both the strain field of a moving dislocation and the spatiotemporal evolution agree well with those of a sliding precursor detected in experiments. The results may cast new light to the dynamics of sliding onset.