Rolling contact with slip on a thermoelastic half-space: comparison with perfect rolling contact

Abstract

A rigid cylinder rolls at constant speed on a thermoelastic half-space under a compressive load. Heat flow across the contact zone is neglected, and the zone has a central region of perfect contact and two edge regions of frictionless slip. A robust asymptotic inversion of the exact transform solution to a related unmixed boundary value problem allows the mixed-mixed problem of rolling contact to be solved analytically. The solution is compared with that for perfect rolling contact. Both show variations in contact zone size and temperature change with rolling speed and load. Distinctions exist however: slip zones preclude oscillatory solution behavior and are much smaller than zones of oscillation. Moreover, perfect rolling contact may exaggerate the difference between imposed and effective angular velocity due to surface deformation.