A reappraisal of Petrus van Musschenbroek's study of lubricated sliding friction: Did he really observe a Stribeck curve?

Petrus van Musschenbroek (1692–1761) was an influential Dutch natural philosopher who carried out many measurements of friction in the early eighteenth century. For hard steel sliding on copper, he found a rapid increase in friction with sliding speed for both lubricated and unlubricated conditions, and it has been suggested that this may represent the first observation of Stribeck-like behaviour. By modelling the dynamic behaviour of his tribometer, we are able to infer the methods he used to perform his experiments, and show that his results were dominated by the inertia of the apparatus rather than by a true increase in friction with velocity.