Boundary lubrication with a glassy interface

Recently introduced constitutive equations for the rheology of dense, disordered materials are investigated in the context of stick-slip experiments in boundary lubrication. The model is based on a generalization of the shear transformation zone (STZ) theory, in which plastic deformation is represented by a population of mesoscopic regions which may undergo nonaffine deformations in response to stress. The generalization we study phenomenologically incorporates the effects of aging and glassy relaxation. Under experimental conditions associated with typical transitions from stick-slip to steady sliding and stop-start tests, these effects can be dominant, although the full STZ description is necessary to account for more complex, chaotic transitions.