"THERMOELASTIC DISPLACEMENT AND TEMPERATURE RISE IN A HALF-SPACE DUE TO A STEADY-STATE HEAT FLUX "

Abstract

Due to model complexity, classical contact mechanics theory assumes isothermal contact processes, involving bodies with uniform temperatures and no heat transmitted or generated through or near the contact interface. This paper addresses the problem of frictional heating in non-conforming or rough contacts by investigating the thermoelastic behaviour of asperities. The heat generated in a sliding contact by interfacial friction leads to thermoelastic distortion of the contact surface, further modifying contact parameters such as pressure, gap or temperature. The thermal expansion of the contacting bodies must therefore be accounted for when solving the contact problem. The thermoelastic displacement is computed with the aid of the half-space theory and of fundamental solutions for point sources of heat located at the free surface, derived in the literature of heat conduction in solids. The linearity of conduction equations encourages the use of superposition principle in the same way as for the elastic displacement. As the thermoelastic displacement is expressed mathematically as a convolution product, methods derived in contact mechanics for elastic displacement calculation are adapted to the heat conduction equations. The influence coefficients needed to efficiently compute the convolution products are derived, and the Discrete Convolution Fast Fourier Transform technique is applied to improve the algorithm computational efficiency. A similar method is then advanced for the temperature rise on the contact interface due to arbitrary heat input. The predictions of the newly advanced computer programs are tested against existing closed-form solutions for uniform circular or ring heat sources, and a good agreement is found.