Effect of solid body contact deformation on the real contact area under the thermo-mechanical coupling

Abstract

To study the effect of solid body contact deformation on the real contact area, various models are established. These contact models include a contact model between an elastic rough solid and a rigid flat one (E-R model), an elasto-plastic rough solid and a rigid flat one (P-R model), an elasto-plastic rough solid and an elastic flat one (P-E model), an elasto-plastic rough solid and an elasto-plastic flat one (P-P model). The effects of thermo-mechanical coupling and the heat flux coupling are considered in the model which is solved by ABAQUS software. The results show that the real contact area is not only determined by the normal load, but also affected by the contact deformation mode of solid body. The real contact area from the purely elastic model (E-R model) is much smaller than that from the other elasto-plastic model. But the real contact area obtained from the P-R model is the largest. No matter what kind of the solid body contact deformation is, at the moment of the abrupt change of sliding speed and of the hot spotting coming into being, the real contact area increases noticeably, and then varies in a small range during the constant frictional sliding process.