Elasto-plastic contact of rough surfaces

An isothermal elasto-plastic asperity contact model is devel oped and prese nted in this paper; which deals with micro plastic flows of materials and t he influence of the elasto-plastic deformation of materials on the behavior of contacting surfaces. The model is solved with the incremental form of a simplex-type algorithm. The von Mises yield criterion is used to determine the onset of the plastic deformation. The effectiveness and validity of th e model are studied through analyzing a Hertzian contact problem. Substrate stresses are calculated and differences are observes. Furthermore, the con tact pressure, real area of contact, and average gap of real rough surfaces under the elastic, elastic-perfectly-plastic, and the elasto-plastic conta ct conditions are numerically investigated and the results are compared.