Numerical analysis on the adhesive contact between a rigid power-law shaped axisymmetric asperity and an elastic half-space

Abstract

There exist many well-known analytical models for adhesive contact for spherical asperities. However, in many situations, the asperities are not spherical and may be better described by a power-law function. Thus, these well-known analytical models were extended to power-law-shaped axisymmetric asperities in the past decades. In this paper, numerical simulation is employed for the adhesive contact between a rigid power-law axisymmetric asperity and an elastic half-space. The realistic Lennard-Jones potential and the Derjaguin approximation are used for the surface traction. Numerical simulations are performed with different shape indexes and different Tabor parameters. The whole solution is obtained. Semi-empirical formulas for the pull-off forces, the contact radius at zero loads, the jump-in distance, and the pull-off distance are proposed. All these equations are both simple and as accurate as of the numerical simulations.

Keywords:

• Adhesive contact
• numerical simulation
• power-law surface profile
• Lennard–Jones potential

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 There are misprints in Zheng and Yu’s paper [24].

2 There are misprints in Zheng and Yu’s paper [24].

Additional information

Funding

The present work was financially supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan under grant [MOST 109-2221-E-182-010].