The problem of a slender die

The paper deals with the contact behaviour of a slender die indenting an elastic half-space. It is shown that the problem of determining the pressure on the elastic half-space may be reduced (with an error exponentially small relative to the elongation) to a single-variable integral equation, whose solution is commonly represented by an asymptotic series in a small parameter. It was shown for a die of oval form that, depending on the type of contact region, either an increase or decrease in the force acting from the elastic half-space on the die upon approaching the end-points of the die are possible.