SUMMARY
Dry-friction forces have been shown to depend not only on the characteristics of the surface in contact but also on the dynamic interaction of the contacting bodies. A viscoelastic mathematical model that accounts for the interaction at micro-scale of rough surfaces is developed. The mathematical formulation relates the tribological events at microscopic and macroscopic scales vibration response of a "mass on moving belt". The viscoelastic properties are presented by combining loss modulus with Young's modulus to obtain a differential operator on the interference, reminiscent of the Kelvin-Voigt model. The analysis of the system establishes the relation between friction force and speed and supports observed behavior of many systems with friction. The derivations do not rely on a phenomenological account of friction, which requires a presumed friction coefficient. Instead the friction force is accounted for as a result of interaction of the rough surfaces. This has led to a set of nonlinear ordinary differential equations that directly relate the vibration of the system to the surface parameters. It is shown that, as a result of coupling of the macrosystem's dynamics and contact, there are combinations of parameters at micro- and macroscale that yield negative slope in friction force/sliding speed relation, a well known source of dynamic instability.