Thermoelastic influence of convective and conduction interstitial conditions on the size of the contact zone in three-dimensional receding thermoelastic contact problem

Abstract

The temperature variation within two elastic bodies in perfect thermoelastic contact may cause the contact area to become convex and hence lead to a reduction in the size of the contacting surface. In receding thermoelastic contact problems, the final size of the contact zone is independent of the applied loads, being only affected by the thermomechanical properties of the solids. However, the final size of the contact zone can also be affected by the conductive and convective boundary conditions at the separation zones of the contacting surfaces. In those regions, the heat flux is a function of the separation between the solids, so the thermal and the thermoelastic problems are highly coupled. For this reason, this work studies the three-dimensional receding thermomechanical contact problem under conductive and convective boundary conditions at the interstitial zones of the contact area. After the validation of the numerical scheme presented to solve this problem, several examples are presented and discussed in detail. The results reveal that conductive and convective interstitial boundary conditions have a significant effect not only on the size of the contact zone, but also on the resulting tractions, temperature and heat flux distributions.