General directions in contact modelling development

Abstract

This paper presents a survey of works, selected from the period of the last twenty years, on deformations in the contact between rough surfaces. All the selected works use FEM. They deal with the modelling of individual contact asperities or the use of experiment to verify contact models. First, research directions connected with the modelling of single asperities, whose shape is usually approximated with that of a hemisphere or a half cylinder, are presented. Section 3 discusses research directions concerning models which include the layer under asperities, and models for small contact surfaces (about 1 mm2). Section 4 reviews directions in contact modelling which takes into account neighbouring asperities and laterally loaded asperities. Section 5 discusses directions in the development of models and experiments used or suitable for verifying models. Finally, conclusions concerning accurate contact deformation modelling are presented.