Asperity (geotechnical engineering)

In geotechnical engineering and contact mechanics the term asperity is used to refer to individual features of unevenness (roughness) of the surface of a discontinuity, 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 material property, arising from mechanisms of adhesion and repulsion at the atomic scale (often accounted for by material friction, atomic friction or molecular friction).

Source: Wikipedia — Asperity (geotechnical engineering) (CC BY-SA 4.0)