Elastic-Perfectly Plastic Contact of Rough Surfaces: An Incremental Equivalent Circular Model

In this paper, an incremental equivalent contact model is developed for elastic-perfectly plastic solids with rough surfaces. The contact of rough surface is modeled by the accumulation of circular contacts with varying radius, which is estimated from the geometrical contact area and the number of contact patches. For three typical rough surfaces with various mechanical properties, the present model gives accurate predictions of the loadarea relation, which are verified by direct finite element simulations. An approximately linear load-area relation is observed for elastic-plastic contact up to a large contact fraction of 15%, and the influence of yield stress is addressed.