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Finite element contact analysis of fractal surfaces

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2007 J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 40 4245

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IOP PUBLISHING JOURNAL OF PHYSICS D: APPLIED PHYSICS
J. Phys. D: Appl. Phys. 40 (2007) 4245–4252 doi:10.1088/0022-3727/40/14/021

Finite element contact analysis of fractal

surfaces
Prasanta Sahoo1 and Niloy Ghosh
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Jadavpur University, Kolkata 700032, India
E-mail: psahoo@vsnl.net

Received 15 March 2007, in final form 21 May 2007

Published 29 June 2007
Online at stacks.iop.org/JPhysD/40/4245

Abstract
The present study considers finite element analysis of non-adhesive,
frictionless elastic/elastic–plastic contact between a rigid flat plane and a
self-affine fractal rough surface using the commercial finite element package
ANSYS. Three-dimensional rough surfaces are generated using a modified
two-variable Weierstrass–Mandelbrot function with given fractal
parameters. Parametric studies are done to consider the general relations
between contact properties and key material and surface parameters. The
present analysis is validated with available experimental results in the
literature. Non-dimensional contact area and displacement are obtained as
functions of non-dimensional load for varying fractal surface parameters in
the case of elastic contact and for varying rates of strain hardening in the
case of elastic–plastic contact of fractal surfaces.

1. Introduction assumptions. These statistical models ignore some or all of

The contact between solid surfaces is of great importance in
several branches of science and engineering such as tribology,
heat transfer, surface science etc. The deformed area and
force that arise from the elastic/plastic contact between solid
surfaces have a strong influence on the phenomena of adhesion,
friction, wear and lubrication as well as conduction of heat
and electricity. The presence of roughness on solid surfaces
results in an imperfect contact that leads to the real area of
contact being a fraction of the apparent or nominal area of
contact. Experiments by Bowden and Tabor [1], Dieterich
and Kilgore [2], Berthoud and Baumberger [3] and theory
by Greenwood [4], Greenwood and Wu [5], Volmer and
Natterman [6], Persson [7], Batrouni et al [8] and Ciavarella
et al [9] reveal that the real area of contact A is often much
smaller than the projected area A0 of the surfaces. Some
studies have examined the plastic limit where the local pressure
is large enough to flatten asperities [1]. The mean pressure in
the contacts is W/A, where W is the normal load and in the
simplest model this has a constant value that is proportional
to the hardness. The resulting linear relation between load
W and A is often given as an explanation for the linear
rise of friction with the load [10]. A number of models
[11–13], treating asperities as an elasto-plastic material, have
been developed based on Greenwood and Williamson [14]
1 Author to whom any correspondence should be addressed.
the correlation between asperities, implying that asperities are
far apart. This assumption may prove especially limiting in
the context of plastic deformation where large and closely
spaced contact clusters may develop. However, there are a few
reports [15–18] that attempt to consider the interaction between
asperities in statistical modelling of contacts. Moreover,
in these statistical models, bulk deformation is neglected
and plasticity models at the asperities do not consider large
deformation theory. As a result the elastic–plastic transition
may be discontinuous [11]. Finite element analysis is a logical
solution for addressing some of these shortcomings since it
is robust enough to consider interaction between asperities
as well as bulk deformation. The finite element method
(FEM) has been effectively used to solve the elasto-plastic
contact of a single asperity [19, 20]. Liu et al [21] developed
an isothermal elasto-plastic asperity model, which is solved
with the increment form of a simplex-type algorithm for the
contact of a cylinder with a rigid plane. The result of a finite-
element simulation [22] was fitted in the power-law type for
the expression of normal load and shear forces between two
hemispherical asperities. These finite element models did not
provide a method to determine the onset of the fully plastic
deformation regime.
Conventionally, the surface roughness is characterized by
statistical parameters such as standard deviations of the surface
height, slope and curvature. The models of elastic/plastic

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P Sahoo and N Ghosh
contacts [11–14] use these parameters for the analysis of
contact between rough surfaces. However, due to the
multiscale nature of the surfaces it is found that the variances of
slope and curvature depend on the resolution of the roughness
measuring instruments or any other form of filter, and thus
not unique for a surface. Roughness measurements on a
variety of surfaces show that the power spectra of the surface
profiles follow power laws. This suggests that when a
surface is magnified appropriately, the magnified image looks
very similar to the original surface. This property can be
mathematically described by the concepts of self-similarity and
self-affinity. The fractal dimension, which forms the essence of
fractal geometry, is both scale-invariant and is closely linked
to the concepts of self-similarity and self-affinity [23]. It is
therefore essential to use the fractal dimension to characterize
rough surfaces and provide the geometric structure at all
length scales [24–26]. Finite element analysis of fractal
surface contact is limited in the literature. Komvopoulos and
Ye [27, 28] considered finite element analysis of head-disc
layered interface with fractal topography description. But the
effect of strain hardening was not included in these studies.
Hyun et al [29] adopted a fully three-dimensional (3D) finite
element analysis for elastic contact between rough surfaces
with a range of self-affine fractal scaling behaviour. They
found a linear relationship between area and load, with a
proportionality constant lying between the analytic predictions
of Bush et al [30] and Persson [7]. However, the pressures
predicted by this work for realistic surface roughness are often
high enough to produce plastic deformation. In addition, the
exponent characterizing the power law distribution of cluster
size was larger than in the experiments [2]. In order to address
these questions, Pei et al [31] extended the results established
for elastic contact [29] to the case of elasto-plastic asperities
considering a wide range of self-affine surface topographies
and varying the ratio of the yield stress to the Young’s
modulus and the rate of strain hardening in the constitutive
law. These studies [29, 31] do not consider the effect of
variation of fractal parameters on contact behaviour involving
area, load, displacement, etc. Moreover, these studies are
computationally very intensive. Use of commercial finite
element software to model this type of effects instead of
having to write a program to do it may be of great interest
to the community of scientists and engineers investigating
contact between surfaces. Thus the present study aims at
analysing the elastic as well as elastic–plastic contact of self-
affine fractal surfaces with due consideration to variation in
fractal parameters as well as strain hardening with the help of
commercial FEM software. Three-dimensional rough surfaces
are generated using a modified two-variable Weierstrass–
Mandelbrot function [32] with given fractal parameters and
used in the commercial finite element package ANSYS 8.0 for
contact analysis. The contact morphology including contact
area, load and displacement is analysed for varying fractal
dimension and fractal roughness. The elastic–plastic contact
behaviour is also considered to evaluate the effect of varying
rates of strain hardening.
2. Surface modelling
Rough surface topographies have been conventionally
quantified in terms of the height variance, slope and curvature
4246
of surface summits. However, the values of these parameters
are scale-dependent, i.e. they strongly depend on the sample
length and the resolution of the measuring instrument.
A realistic multiscale roughness description can only be done
using scale-independent fractal parameters. A 3D fractal
surface topography can be generated using a modified
(truncated) two-variable Weierstrass–Mandelbrot function that
can be written as [32]

(D−2)

ln γ 1/2  
M nmax
G
z(x, y) = L γ (D−3)n
L M m=1 n=0
 
2π γ n (x 2 + y 2 )1/2
× cos φm,n − cos
L


  
−1 y πm
× cos tan − + φm,n . (1)
x M
Here L is the sample length, G is the fractal roughness, D is
the fractal dimension (2 < D < 3), γ (γ > 1) is a scaling
parameter, M is the number of superposed ridges used to
construct the surfaces, n is a frequency index, with nmax =
int[log(L/Ls )/ log γ ] representing the upper limit of n, where
Ls is the cut-off length and φm,n is a random phase. The scaling
parameter γ controls the density of frequencies in the surface
profile. Based on surface flatness and frequency distribution
density considerations, γ = 1.5 [32]. For a truncated series,
i.e. starting at n = 0 rather than n = −∞ as in equation (1), the
scaling property is approximate, i.e. scaling is satisfied only to
within a small additive term [33]. Thus, the surface function
given by equation (1) possesses a scale-invariant (fractal)
behaviour [34] only within a finite range of length scales,
outside of which the surface topography can be represented by
a deterministic function. It may be noted here that the smallest
length corresponds to the instrument resolution and the upper
length to the length of the profile. Since frequencies outside
the range determined by the lower and upper wavelengths
do not contribute to the observed profile, self-similarity is
satisfied at all scales only approximately. The fractal roughness
G is a height scaling parameter independent of frequency
within the scale range where fractal power-law behaviour is
observable. Physically, higher G values correspond to rougher
(less dense) surface topographies. The magnitude of the fractal
dimension D determines the contribution of high and low
frequency components in the surface function z(x, y). Thus,
high values of D indicate that high-frequency components
are more dominant than low-frequency components in the
surface topography profile. The physical significance of
D is the extent of space occupied by the rough surface,
i.e. larger D values correspond to denser profiles (smoother
topography). The surface height function given by equation (1)
is continuous, non-differentiable, scale-invariant within the
range determined by the upper and lower wavelengths used in
the truncated series, and self-affine asymptotically according
to the analysis of Blackmore and Zhou [35]. The self-affinity
implies that as the surface is repeatedly magnified, more and
more surface features appear and the magnified image shows
a close resemblance to that of the original surface obtained at
a different scale. These properties make the function given
by equation (1) suitable for constructing surfaces possessing

Figure 1. A sample Weierstrass–Mandelbrot surface.
topographies closely resembling the actual surfaces with
the same fractal parameters D and G. Figure 1 shows a
sample Weierstrass–Mandelbrot (W–M) surface produced in
MATLAB 7.0 using D = 2.3, G = 1.36 × 10−11 m, L =
9 × 10−7 m, Ls = 1.5 × 10−7 m, M = 10 and γ = 1.5 (height
scale is in m).
3. Finite element modelling
The finite element analysis was carried out using the static
analysis of ANSYS 8.0 which calculates the contact area after
the application of the load. MATLAB 7.0 is used to generate
the z(x, y) values from equation (1) as per the supplied x and
y values. The length of the sample is set to be 9 × 10−7 m with
M = 10 and Ls = 1.5 × 10−7 m. The points so generated are
imported to ANSYS 8.0 as key points. A surface is created
by joining the key points. The surface so created is made
solid in ANSYS. The upper surface of the solid is identified
as the CONTACT surface. A rigid surface is made to just
touch the contact surface from the top. The rigid top surface
is set as the TARGET surface.
The rough deformable solid body is modelled using
3D solid element SOLID45, which is defined by eight nodes
having three degrees of freedom at each node: translations in
the nodal x, y and z directions. The element SOLID45 has
plasticity, creep, swelling, stress stiffening, large deflection
and large strain capabilities. TARGE170 is used to represent
the 3D ‘target’ surface for the associated contact element
(CONTA173). The contact elements themselves overlie the
solid elements describing the boundary of a deformable body
and are potentially in contact with the target surface, defined
by TARGE170. This target surface is discretized by a set
of target segment elements (TARGE170) and is paired with
its associated contact surface via a shared real constant set.
One can impose any translational or rotational displacement,
temperature, voltage and magnetic potential on the target
segment element. One can also impose forces and moments
on target elements. CONTA173 is used to represent contact
and sliding between a 3D ‘target’ surface (TARGE170) and a
deformable surface, defined by this element. The element is
Finite element contact analysis of fractal surfaces
Figure 2. Geometry of finite element mesh in rough solid.
applicable to 3D structural and coupled field contact analyses.
This element is located on the surface of a rough solid.
To validate the capability of the software ANSYS 8.0
in solving contact problems, it is used to analyse the elastic
contact of a sphere with a rigid plane. The FEM results for
a sphere-plane model are compared with the Hertz elastic
solution [10]. The contact force differs from the Hertz solution
by no more than 2% and the contact radius differs by a
maximum of 10%. The favourable comparison of the results
illustrates the suitability of the finite element software to
resolve contact problems. However, the capacity and accuracy
of the present finite element model involving contact of
fractal rough surfaces is established through comparison with
the results of contact experiments available in the literature
(discussed later).
In order to ensure that the results are accurate within the
conceptual framework used to analyse the present problem,
mesh convergence must be satisfied. The mesh density is
iteratively increased until the contact force and contact area
differ by less than 1% between iterations. Depending on
the fractal parameters and the expected region of contact,
the number of elements in the resulting mesh varies. The
resulting mesh consists of at least 28 848 SOLID45 elements,
577 TARGE170 elements and 3200 CONTA173 elements.
Figure 2 shows a typical geometry of a finite element mesh
in an elastic solid with a self-affine surface with D = 2.4 and
G = 1.36 × 10−10 m. In order to restrict any movement of
the base of the solid, the nodes lying in the xy plane at z = 0
were rigidly constrained from moving in the z direction. The
rigid plane is allowed to move in the z direction only. Each
analysis consisted of a single load step with the maximum
and minimum numbers of sub-steps being set to 100 and 10,
respectively. These values are chosen in order to establish
a small initial sub-step. Within each sub-step a maximum
of 30 equilibrium iterations is allowed. To avoid element
distortion, ANSYS uses the bisection method to increase the
number of load sub-steps so that the load can be applied at a
slower rate. The contact with the rigid plane is realized using
surface-to-surface contact elements that use the Augmented
Lagrangian method. In our approach, a force is applied to the
4247
P Sahoo and N Ghosh
(a)
(c)
Figure 3. Contact area evolution at varying applied loads for a surface with D = 2.4, G = 1.36 × 10−12 m. (a) W = 2 × 10−7 N,
(b) W = 3 × 10−7 N, (c) W = 4 × 10−7 N and (d) W = 5 × 10−7 N.
(This figure is in colour only in the electronic version)
rigid plane causing it to move incrementally downward and a
node is assumed to come into contact when its distance from
the plane becomes zero. To obtain a converged solution in a
reasonable period of time, the displacement tolerance was set
to 0.001. The computations are performed on a xeon processor.
The run times vary according to the number of displacement
steps involved and the machine used. However, on average
each set of results took approximately 3 h to complete.
4. Contact simulation and comparison problems
To establish the capacity and accuracy of the present model,
we first performed a set of simulations using experimentally
determined surface roughness input parameters and compared
our results with the experimental results of contact experiments
reported in the literature. For each of the numerical analyses
performed, the contact load, contact area and displacement
of the rigid plane are recorded and normalized as: non-
dimensional load: W/E  A0 , non-dimensional contact area:
A/A0 and non-dimensional displacement: δ/L. Here W is the
contact load, A0 is the nominal contact area (= L2 , L being
the length of sample), E  is the composite elastic modulus
(E  = E/(1 − ν 2 ), E and ν being the elastic modulus and
Poisson’s ratio of the rough deformable solid), A is the real
contact area and δ is the displacement of the rigid plane due to
the applied load.
4248
(b)
(d)
4.1. Contact area evolution
Figure 3 shows the contact morphology at varying applied
loads for a surface with D = 2.4, G = 1.36 × 10−12 m and it
clearly shows the effect of increasing loads for fixed values of
D and G. It may be noted here that in the legend of figure 3,
sliding refers to actual contact. It is clearly visible from this
figure that contact area grows with the increase in load.
4.2. Comparison problem for load area relationship
The effectiveness of the proposed model is evaluated using the
data and results given in Kucharski et al [36]. They performed
measurement of contact load, area and relative approach
between steel specimens having Young’s modulus 200 GPa,
tangent modulus 20 GPa, Poisson’s ratio 0.3 and tensile yield
strength 400 MPa. The 3D profilometry of sand-blasted steel
surfaces are provided there, but no data are available regarding
fractal dimension and fractal roughness parameter. From the
3D profilometric data, average values of fractal dimension and
roughness parameter are chosen for comparative study in the
present case as D = 2.3, G = 1.36 × 10−11 m. The equivalent
Young’s modulus E  is evaluated as E/(1 − ν 2 ), which is
equal to 219.78 GPa and hardness H is taken as 1.12 GPa
(2.8 times yield strength). The same material property is
used in the finite element solution as well as in the analytical
solution of Yan and Komvopoulos [32]. Figure 4 shows a
comparison of the present model with the experimental results
 Finite element contact analysis of fractal surfaces

Figure 4. Comparison between FEM (ANSYS) results, analytical Figure 5. Comparison between FEM (ANSYS) solution and
results [32] and experimental results [36]. experimental results [37].

Table 1. Material properties of the rough fractal surfaces.

of Kucharski et al [36] and the analytical solution [32] for Material type BISO (bilinear isotropic)
non-dimensional contact area variation with non-dimensional
Young’s modulus, E (GPa) 200
contact load. Clearly, the present model presents favourable Poisson ratio 0.3
agreement between the predicted contact area/load values to Yield stress, σs (MPa) 250
that obtained by measurements. However, the analytical Tangent modulus, Et (GPa) 0, 10, 60, 100
solution differs significantly from both the ANSYS and the
experimental results. This is due to the fact that the analytical
model ignores the asperity interaction effect and is developed
for elastic-perfectly plastic material behaviour.

4.3. Comparison problem for load-deflection relationship

Buzio et al [37] investigated the load deflection behaviour
between atomic force microscope (AFM) probes and self-
affine fractal carbon films. Thus they presented the
experimental result for multiple asperity contact between
nanostructured carbon and AFM probe. For nanostructured
carbon, Young’s modulus is 0.8 GPa, hardness is 45 MPa,
tangent modulus is 0 and Poisson’s ratio is 0.3. The AFM
probe can be considered rigid. Thus for this system, equivalent
Young’s modulus (E  ) is 0.88 GPa and yield strength is taken
as H /2.8 = 16.07 MPa. In Buzio et al [37], AFM imaging
provides fractal dimension D = 2.3 and fractal roughness
G = 1.55 × 10−10 m along with the nominal contact area
Figure 6. Stress–strain diagram for material having bilinear
A0 = 4.8 × 10−12 m2 . The same material and fractal isotropic properties.
properties are used for the ANSYS solution. Figure 5 depicts
the comparison between the experimental result [37] and the
ANSYS solution in terms of non-dimensional displacement elastically and the other in which asperities have an elastic–
versus non-dimensional load plot, and it may clearly be seen plastic behaviour. The material properties of the rough
that there is favourable agreement between the two. deformable fractal surfaces are given in table 1. The material
of the rough surface was assumed elastic linear isotropic
hardening with a tangent modulus Et . The stress–strain
5. Numerical results and discussion diagram of the material used in modelling the deformable
rough solid is shown in figure 6. The fractal parameters D
Having established the capacity and accuracy of the and G are chosen in the range typically observed on real rough
present finite element modelling in ANSYS 8.0 through surfaces. D values are considered in the range between 2.3
the comparison problems discussed in the previous section, the and 2.7, and G values are considered in the range between
present model is used to analyse contact of fractal surfaces with 1.36 × 10−13 and 1.36 × 10−10 m. The same non-dimensional
a rigid plane for varying fractal and material properties under scheme as described in section 4 is used for presenting the
two different situations: one in which the asperities behave results.

4249
P Sahoo and N Ghosh

Figure 8. Non-dimensional area against non-dimensional load:

Figure 7. Non-dimensional area against non-dimensional load:
effect of varying G, at D = 2.4.
effect of varying D at G = 1.36 × 10−11 m.

5.1. Elastic contact

In order to consider the elastic contact of fractal surfaces the
applied load is so chosen that the maximum contact pressure
remains within the yield strength of the material. Figure 7
shows the plots of non-dimensional contact area as a function
of non-dimensional load for fractal roughness parameter G =
1.36 × 10−11 m and varying fractal dimension D. It is seen
that contact area is linearly proportional to load at small
loads and small D values. But a growing deviation from
this linear proportionality is observed at higher loads and at
high D values. Most of the analytical theories predict a linear
relationship between area and load assuming that there is a
statistically significant number of asperities in contact and only
the tops of the asperities are in contact. The latter assumption
breaks down as non-dimensional area approaches unity and
this contributes to the deviation from linearity at larger loads. Figure 9. Non-dimensional displacement against non-dimensional
For fixed fractal roughness G, it is seen that increasing fractal load: effect of varying D at G = 1.36 × 10−11 m.
dimension increases the contact area at a particular load.
Physically higher D represents smoother topography. Hence Figure 10 shows the plots of non-dimensional displace-
at a particular load, contact area is higher for a surface with ment of the rigid plane as a function of non-dimensional load
higher D. for a fixed fractal dimension D = 2.4 and varying roughness
Figure 8 shows the plots of non-dimensional contact area parameter G. It is seen that at smaller G, the displacement
as a function of non-dimensional load for a fixed fractal bears a linear relationship with load while it deviates from
dimension D = 2.4 and varying roughness parameter G from linearity at higher G values and higher loads. A decrease in
1.36 × 10−10 to 1.36 × 10−13 m. It is seen that at higher G represents smoother (denser) topography. Thus at a partic-
G, area bears a linear relationship to load while it deviates ular load, displacement is small for lower G values due to the
from linearity at smaller G values and higher loads. Since G resulting larger real contact areas.
is a height scaling parameter, higher G values correspond to
rougher (less dense) surface topographies while a decrease in G
5.2. Elastic–plastic contact
represents smoother (denser) topography. Thus at a particular
load, contact area is larger for lower G values. In order to consider the elastic–plastic contact of fractal
Figure 9 shows the plots of non-dimensional displacement surfaces, the applied load is now so chosen that the maximum
of the rigid plane as a function of non-dimensional load for contact pressure crosses the yield strength of the material. The
fractal roughness parameter G = 1.36 × 10−11 m and varying analysis is carried out by keeping D and G values constant
fractal dimension D. It is observed that displacement is while the value of tangent modulus (Et ) is varied to observe
proportional to load at small loads and higher D values. But the effect of strain hardening on contact behaviour. Figure 11
at higher loads and at small D values the rate of change of shows the plots of non-dimensional displacement as a function
displacement with load decreases. It means the stiffness of the of non-dimensional load for fractal parameter D = 2.4 and
surface is more for higher D and it increases with load. G = 1.36 × 10−11 m for different values of the ratio of

4250

Figure 10. Non-dimensional displacement against non-dimensional
load: effect of varying G at D = 2.4.
Et= 0
Et /E= 0.05
Et /E= 0.3
Et /E= 0.5
Figure 11. Non-dimensional displacement against non-dimensional
load: effect of varying Et .
Et and E. It is seen that the load-displacement relation for
elastic–plastic contact is nearly linear for higher Et values
while it is highly non-linear at Et = 0, i.e. for elastic-perfectly
plastic material. However for linear strain hardening material
(with nonzero Et ), the displacement at a particular load is
higher for smaller Et values. In other words, the load capacity
at a particular displacement is found to be higher for a higher
rate of strain hardening.
Figure 12 shows the plots of non-dimensional contact
area as a function of non-dimensional load for various values
of Et . It is seen that load-area behaviour for elastic–plastic
contact is linear for different Et values except at Et = 0 where
bilinear nature is observed. At a particular load, contact area is
more for lower Et . In other words, for the same contact area,
load capacity is more for higher rates of strain hardening (i.e.
higher Et ). In the present study the elastic–plastic behaviour is
analysed for varying rates of strain hardening for fixed fractal
properties of the surfaces. However, the effect of varying
fractal properties along with the variation of the rate of strain
hardening on the elastic–plastic behaviour of fractal surfaces
needs to be considered in order to examine if there exists any
Finite element contact analysis of fractal surfaces
Et = 0
Et =10 Gpa
Et = 60 Gpa
Et =100 Gpa
Figure 12. Non-dimensional area against non-dimensional load:
effect of varying Et .
coupling effect in this respect. Future study will attempt to
evaluate such behaviour.
The present results are qualitatively similar to the results
of Pei et al [31]. However, a quantitative comparison is out
of reach since Pei et al have used a different set of fractal
parameters to represent the rough surfaces. The present
results indicate that, if we want to predict how two surfaces
behave when in contact with each other, adequate surface
characterization in terms of the fractal nature must be made.
The scale-independent fractal parameters D and G to be used
in the analysis can be experimentally determined by some
standard techniques such as the structure function method,
the power spectrum method, etc. Though the range of D
and G values used in the present analysis refers to the same
typically observed on real rough surfaces, the present study
does not properly represent the real contact situations. This is
due to the fact that the present analysis does not include the
effects of adhesion, interfacial friction and tangential loading
of the solids. The presents results and trends are thus applicable
when the magnitudes of tangential traction and adhesion at
asperity micro-contacts are insignificant. However, future
studies will attempt to evaluate these effects. Consideration of
cyclic loading–unloading behaviour is also a promising area
for future study.
6. Conclusions
Finite element contact analysis of fractal surfaces is performed
using the commercial FEM software ANSYS 8.0 in the present
study. Both elastic and elastic–plastic contacts are considered
for fractal surfaces with varying fractal dimension D and
fractal roughness parameter G. The present FEM analysis
agrees favourably well with the experimental results available
in the literature. In the elastic regime, contact area is linearly
proportional to the contact load at small loads and small
D values. But at higher loads and at high D values the load
area behaviour becomes nonlinear. In the elastic zone, area
bears a linear relationship to load at higher G but it deviates
from linearity at lower G values and higher loads. In the
4251
P Sahoo and N Ghosh
elastic region displacement is proportional to load, at small
loads and higher D. But for higher D, the stiffness of the
surface increases and it increases with load also. The elastic
region load displacement behaviour is linear for smaller G
but deviates from linearity at higher G values. In the elastic–
plastic regime the load capacity at a particular displacement
is found to be higher for higher rates of strain hardening.
Also at a particular load in the elastic–plastic regime contact
area is found to be more for lower rates of strain hardening.
The present results indicate that in order to predict how two
surfaces behave when in contact with each other, adequate
surface characterization must be made in terms of the fractal
nature of the surfaces.
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