A Fully Coupled Normal and Tangential Contact Model to Investigate the Effect of Surface Roughness on the Partial Slip of Dissimilar Elastic Materials

Abstract By adopting a global search method for all shear tractions in the contacting area and using an alternative convergence criterion regarding load balance in the lateral direction, the newly developed algorithm provides stable solutions to partial-slip problems of elastically dissimilar materials. The model is validated via the comparison between the simulation and literature results for a sphere-on-flat problem under fully coupled conditions. It is then employed to investigate the influence of surface roughness parameters including the root mean square (RMS) roughness and RMS slope on partial-slip solutions under coupled conditions. Since the gross sliding condition is modified under coupling effects, the relationship between the ratio of the stick area to the contacting area (stick ratio) and tangential load in the coupled case, unlike that in the uncoupled one, becomes non-linear for all tested rough surfaces. Under low or medium tangential loads, the surface with a higher RMS gradient or a lower RMS roughness experiences more stick regions within the contacting area. This trend then becomes irregular at higher tangential loads.