Effect of local slopes of roughness during contact between solids

Abstract

In this work we propose to deal with the study of static sealing. The latter is modelled in a microscopic scale with finite elements method. The numerical simulations are related to the contact between conical asperities of a rough surface and a smooth rigid plan. It thus makes it possible to observe the local behaviours of the asperities during their crushing and to draw conclusions on the influence of various parameters such as the attack angle. If it is possible to deal with only a few asperities, the finite elements method does not allow us to succeed a full three-dimensional study. We thus propose in this work a simplified approach to solve this contact problem and to perform its generalisation to a random morphology. This useful method considers the contact between the real surface, which roughness is modelled as a distribution of indenters with various attack angles, and a smooth rigid plan.