NUMERICAL CONTACT MODEL OF A SMOOTH BALL ON AN ANISOTROPIC ROUGH-SURFACE

A numerical elastic-plastic contact model of a smooth ball on a direct ionally structured anisotropic rough surface is presented. The contact model is tested on three types of surface contact of a smooth ball on (i) a smooth surface, (ii) a sinusoidal surface, and (iii) a real rou gh surface. The validity of the model is proven by good agreement of t he numerical result for the smooth surface with the Hertz analytical r esult. The contact of the sinusoidal surface shows that by the introdu ction of surface undulation in a regular pattern, the real pressure di stribution follows the expected behavior where the contact pressure at the peak is maximum and the contact pressure at the valley is zero an d the peak pressure decreases away from the ball center. The contact o f the real rough surface shows the ability of the model to cope with t he more practically realistic situation where the asperity heights are distributed randomly. The results of the rough surface contact analys is for different surface roughness are presented in a separate paper.