Influence of liquid bridges in the interface gap on the contact of bodies made of compliant materials

Abstract

We model the interaction of elastic half spaces in the presence of bridges formed by incompressible liquid on the edges of an intercontact gap in the form is a groove made on the surface of one of the bodies and gas pressure in the middle part of the gap. The solution of the problem is presented via the function of gap height. To determine this function, we deduce a singular integral equation and solve it analytically. The conditions of boundedness of the solution of the singular integral equation and constancy of the amount of liquid in the gap are used to deduce a system of transcendental equations for the lengths of the gap and liquid bridges. The dependences of the height of the meniscus and the lengths of the gap and the regions filled with gas and liquid on the applied load are constructed for relatively soft materials of the contact couple. It is shown that, unlike relatively rigid materials, the contact behavior of the couple is ambiguous: parallel with the state of contact equilibrium typical of rigid materials, there exists another equilibrium state with smaller height of the interface gap.