Rough surface contact analysis by means of the Finite Element Method and of a new reduced model

This article presents two approaches of a normal frictionless mechanical contact between an elastoplastic material and a rigid plane: a full scale finite element analysis (FEA) and a reduced model. Both of them use a representative surface element (RSE) of an experimentally measured surface roughness. The full scale FEA is performed with the Finite Element code Zset using its parallel solver. It provides the reference for the reduced model. The ingredients of the reduced model are a series of responses that are calibrated by means of FEA on a single asperity and phenomenological rules to account for asperity–asperity interaction. The reduced model is able to predict the load–displacement curve, the real contact area and the free volume between the contacting pair during the compression of a rough surface against a rigid plane. The CPU time is a few seconds for the reduced model, instead of a few days for the full FEA.