Abstract
The paper presents an approach to the simulation of friction interaction. The model does not use any physical descriptions of the processes in the system, but it has simple physical interpretation. It is based on one qualitative experimental result – the value of first Lyapunov exponent drops with normal load. It is shown that the logistic map could be considered as the simplest model of continuous contact. The generalization of the model (which takes into account the discreteness of the real contact) gives results very similar to the experimental ones. It is in the form of a dynamic ensemble with variable structure (DEVS), which has some interesting properties – particularly bifurcation diagrams.