Sliding bifurcations in the dynamics of mechanical systems with dry friction—remarks for engineers and applied scientists

The dynamics of mechanical systems with dry friction is affected by non-smooth bifurcations, which have been recently partially classified as ‘sliding bifurcations’. In applied science a bifurcation is usually seen as the point in which the number of fixed points and/or (quasi-)periodic solutions changes. The paper describes with several detailed examples that ‘sliding bifurcations’ do not always correspond to such definition.