Menu
Home
People
Places
Arts
History
Plants & Animals
Science
Life & Culture
Technology
Reference.org
Asperity (geotechnical engineering)
open-in-new
<p>In <a href="/facts/Geotechnical_engineering/Nw55uq9R">geotechnical engineering</a> and <a href="/facts/Contact_mechanics/oKVrqJxL">contact mechanics</a> the term asperity is used to refer to individual features of unevenness (<i>roughness</i>) of the surface of a <a href="/facts/Discontinuity_(Geotechnical_engineering)/rdG68UVf">discontinuity</a>, grain, or particle with heights in the range from approximately 0.1 mm to the order of metres. Below the asperity level, surface interactions are normally considered to be a <i>material</i> property, arising from mechanisms of adhesion and repulsion at the atomic scale (often accounted for by <i>material friction</i>, <i>atomic friction</i> or <i>molecular friction</i>). </p>