Contact of an Elastic Body with a Rigid Base Containing Grooves Partially Filled with Nonwetting Liquid

Abstract

We study the frictionless contact of an elastic half space with a rigid base textured by quasielliptic grooves in the presence of an incompressible liquid that does not wet the surfaces of bodies in the interface gaps. Under the action of surface tension, the liquid forms bridges in the middle parts of the gaps. At the same time, the edges of the gaps are filled with a gas whose pressure is constant. The pressure drops in the liquid and in gas are described by the Laplace formula. The formulated contact problem is reduced to a singular integral equation for the derivative of the height of interface gaps and to a transcendental equation for the width of liquid bridges. The dependences of the width of liquid bridges, contact pressure, shape of the gaps, contact distances, and contact compliance of the half space on the applied load and surface tension in the liquid are analyzed.