Frictional contact analysis of composite materials

Abstract

In this paper, the highly non-linear frictional contact problems of composite materials are analysed. A proportional loading, the potential contact zone method and finite element analysis are used to solve the problems. A tree-like searching method is used to obtain the solution of the parametric linear complementary problem, which may overcome the anisotropic properties of contact equations caused by composite materials. In the frictional contact analysis of composite materials, the distributions of normal contact pressures, tangential contact stresses and relative tangential displacements are presented for different contact material systems and different coefficients of friction. The results show that the solutions in the paper have good agreement with Hertzian solutions. The influence of different contact material systems and different coefficients of friction on the contact stresses and displacements is large. As a numerical example, ball-indentation tests of composite materials are modelled by the three-dimensional finite element method.