Experimental studies on the interfacial separation and stiffness of rough elastic-plastic solids

The direct measurement of interfacial separation between rough solids is hitherto one of the most challenging tasks in contact mechanics. This paper develops an optical interferometric technique for in-situ measuring interfacial separation with nanoscale precision. For the contact of metallic samples, the evolutions of interfacial separation and stiffness with load are measured. In the loading process, the dependence of interfacial stiffness on load can be described by a power law with the exponent smaller than unity at low loads and larger than unity at large loads. Similar relations have been found for unloading but interrupted with a linear relation at intermediate loads. These characteristics are significantly different from those known for rough elastic solids, and provide new insights in tribology.