CONTACT STRESSES AT THE APEX OF A WEDGE-SHAPED PUNCH PRESSED UPON THEEDGE OF AN ELASTIC 3-DIMENSIONAL WEDGE

An asymptotic method, used previously for a similar problem [1], is us ed to study the behaviour of contact stresses at a new singular point- the intersection of the apex of a wedge-shaped punch with the edge of an elastic three-dimensional wedge. Friction in the contact region is ignored. At fairly smalt wedge angles of the punch and relatively larg e angles of the elastic wedge, the leading term in the expansion of th e contact pressures near the singular point r=0 is an oscillator r(-3/ 2)cos(theta lnr), where theta depends mainly on the wedge angle of the punch. If, however, the angles of the punch and the elastic wedge are of the same order of magnitude, terms r(-omega 1-3/2-i omega 2), 0 < omega(1) < 1/2, may appear, which may cause stronger oscillations of t he contact pressures near the punch apex if omega(2) not equal 0.