Closed-Form Equations for Three Dimensional Elastic-Plastic Contact of Nominally Flat Rough Surfaces

Approximate closed-form equations governing the shoulder-shoulder contact of asperities are derived based on a generalization by Chang, Etsion, and Bogy. The work entails the consideration of asperity shoulder-shoulder contact in which the volume conservation is assumed in the plastic flow regime. Shoulder-shoulder asperity contact gives rise to a slanted contact force comprising tangential and normal components. Each force component comprises elastic and plastic terms, which upon statistical summation yields the force component for the elastic and plastic forces for the contact of two rough surfaces. Half-plane tangential force due to elastic-plastic contact is derived through the statistical summation of tangential force component along an arbitrary tangential direction. Two sets of equations are found. In the first set of equations the functional forms are simpler and provide approximation of contact force to within 9%. The second set is enhanced equations derived from the first set of approximate equations that achieve an accuracy of within 0.2%.