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How roughness emerges on natural and engineered surfaces

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Abstract

Roughness, defined as unevenness of material surfaces, plays an important role in determining how engineering components or natural objects interact with other bodies and their environment. The emergence of fractal roughness on natural and engineered surfaces across a range of length scales suggests the existence of common processes and mechanisms for nucleation and evolution of roughness. In this article, we review recent advances in understanding the origins of roughness and topography evolution on natural and engineered surfaces and their connection with subsurface deformation mechanisms. Directions for future research toward understanding the origins of roughness on solid surfaces are discussed.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank L. Pastewka and T. Jacob for their thoughtful efforts and comments toward improving this manuscript. R.A., E.B., and J.F.M. acknowledges respectively the support from the Innovation Fund Denmark (Cutting Edge, 8090-00010B), United States NSF EAR-1624657, and the Swiss National Science Foundation (Wear across scales, 200021-197152). S.C. acknowledges United States NSF Grants DMR 2104745 and CMMI 2100568 to Purdue University used in partial support of this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Mechanical and Production Engineering, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

    Ramin Aghababaei

  2. Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, USA

    Emily E. Brodsky

  3. Department, Institute of Civil Engineering, Institute of Materials, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland

    Jean-François Molinari

  4. School of Industrial Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, USA

    Srinivasan Chandrasekar

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  1. Ramin Aghababaei
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  4. Srinivasan Chandrasekar
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Correspondence to Ramin Aghababaei.

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Aghababaei, R., Brodsky, E.E., Molinari, JF. et al. How roughness emerges on natural and engineered surfaces. MRS Bulletin 47, 1229–1236 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1557/s43577-022-00469-1

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