Investigations Into Asperity Persistence in Heavily Loaded Contacts

Abstract

Experimental results are presented along the lines of the early work of Moore (1948) where a hard smooth roller is pressed into a softer rough surface to study the resulting real to apparent areas of contact and their associated local contact pressures. Results are presented for a hard steel roller deforming mild-steel and aluminum-alloy rough surface specimens. An analysis of the local contact mechanics is performed before and after indentation using a recently developed numerical elastic contact simulation method which allows local asperity contact pressures and areas to be studied in detail. The method is shown to reveal the level and distribution of pressures and asperity contact areas prevalent during the indentation process, and therefore allows the contribution of elastic and plastic load support to be quantified. The persistence of asperities during such indentation tests is discussed in terms of the pressures the asperities can support in relation to reported mechanisms of persistence. Results of subsequent sub-surface stresses are also presented and discussed in terms of how the method might be used to create an elastic-plasticdeformation model that can account for asperity persistence in future numerical contact simulation models.