Finite Element Modeling of Contact of a Paper-Based Friction Material

Abstract

The present paper focuses on a study of the contact of a paper-based friction material used in automatic transmissions using finite element analysis. Different geometrical shapes of asperities, such as spherical asperity, plateaued asperity with convex profile and plateaued asperity with concave profile, were simulated and compared. For the same interference, the real contact area of a plateaued asperity increases much faster than that of a spherical asperity at the beginning of contact. With the increase of the asperity deformation, the real contact area of a plateaued asperity increases slower than that of a spherical asperity. In addition, the real contact area of the plateaued asperity with a convex profile increases faster than that of the plateaued asperity with a concave profile with the increase of interference between two contacting surfaces. The subsurface deformation involving von Mises stress, elastic strain, and shear stress were also determined in this research. Presented as a Society of Tribologists and Lubrication Engineers Paper at the STLE/ASME Tribology Conference in San Francisco, CA October 21–24, 2001