Contact characteristics of viscoelastic bonded layers

A viscoelastic layered contact model has successfully been developed and solved analytically. The single layered linear viscoelastic material is assumed to be perfectly bonded to a rigid substrate in contact with a rigid indenter without friction under a step load. Two cases are considered: (a) a compressible layered material with a typical Poisson's ratio of 0.4 and (b) an incompressible layer with a Poisson's ratio of 0.5. Two viscoelastic models: Maxwell and three element standard linear solid are investigated. This paper highlights the methodology employed and the results obtained under various conditions.