Plastic Deterministic Contact of Rough Surfaces

Abstract

In this paper, a theoretical and experimental investigation is presented to study the contact behavior of the plastic contact of deterministic rough surfaces. Analyses exclude bulk deformation of the rough surface and concentrate to the contact on asperity level. Surface asperities are modeled by an array of elliptic paraboloids where the unit event of a single contact is analyzed using an elastic-plastic elliptical contact model. A new method to determine the surface topography change due to plastic deformation is presented. Results show that the theoretical model developed predicts the contact area and the deformed geometry of the rough surface very well.