Stable and unstable development of an interfacial sliding instability

Examining a nonlinear instability of sliding rate on a frictional interface of elastic bodies, we investigate whether laboratory-constrained frictional relations suggest universal scaling under even the simplest of configurations. We find blowup solutions by solving an equivalent, classical problem in fracture mechanics. The solutions are fixed points of a dynamical system and we show that their stability is lost by a cascade of Hopf bifurcations as a single problem parameter is increased, leading to chaotic dynamics.