Numerical Investigation of the Three Dimensional Elastic–Plastic Sloped Contact Between Two Hemispheric Asperities

Abstract

For real engineering surfaces contact, most asperities come into contact in a configuration of shouldertoshoulder instead of aligned headon. In this work, a threedimensional (3D) model of two identical elastic–plastic spherical asperities in contact was developed which characterizes the initial contact offset with polar angle خ± and azimuthal angle خ². The simulations with finiteelement method (FEM) show that the adhesive coefficient of friction (COF) is only influenced by large initial azimuthal angle thus mainly depends on interfacial shear strength. The plowing COF is determined, however, by effective contact interference, which reflects the combined effects of خ± and خ². Moreover, a detailed parametric study shows that the load ratio is significantly dependent on Young's modulus and interfacial shear strength, while the maximum elastic rebound force during the unloading phase is mainly dependent on polar angle.