Contact of surface asperities in wear

Abstract

Stresses have been examined under the elliptical Hertzian contact area, which appear during a real contact between two asperities in the process of sliding friction. The stresses are found according to the Mises-Hencky criterion and characterize the ability of the material to change its shape. Relationships have been found of such a maximum stress under the surface of the contact area depending on the geometric parameters of the contact area, on the friction coefficient and the maximum pressure in the centre of contact area. The processing of the calculation data was conducted according to a special program on a computer and yielded an approximate relationship to calculate the maximum reduced stress. The distribution of dangerous stresses under the contact surface has been shown. The most critical points may be both within the surface layer of the material and on the contact area itself.