The friction noise between two rough surfaces is caused by the vertical vibration generated by inter-asperity impacts of sliding solids. This phenomenon involves the physics of multicontact interfaces, a field which is largely unknown. The purpose of this thesis is to understand the mechanisms of noise generation and the energy transfer process between two rough surfaces in sliding contact. The contact spots in the interface are rapidly renewed during the movement in a random fashion but their statistical properties remain to be discovered. A numerical tool is developed in order to efficiently study this phenomenon at both macroscopic and microscopic scales. The simulatiosn are carried out thanks to the high performance computing centre in Lyon. This study leads to the following conclusions. The vibration level Lv (dB) is an increasing logarithm function of surface roughness Ra and sliding velocity V. This statement is consistent with experimental results available in the literature. Moreover, we can analyze precisely the asperity shocks which are defined from the time evolution of the contact force. The shock duration is of the order of 0.1 ms, the maximal contact force can reach to 100 times the weight of sliding solid, and the shock rate is of the order of 10000 for a surface of 4 cm2. The asperity shocks are transient excitations, brief but abundant and intensive. These shocks behave like vibrational energy sources and are responsible of the energy transfer in the interface. This is the transformation process of kinetic energy to vibrational energy which is responsible of friction noises.
