DETERMINISTIC CONTACT ANALYSIS OF ROUGH SURFACE USING FINITE ELEMENT METHOD

Abstract

A surface geometry of many components and systems is not always known and not always be measured. This condition make study of real surface was hard to accomplish. Numerical contact simulations of rough surfaces are common but most models contain extensive assumptions and idealizations about asperity shape and size. This thesis presents a new method for generating deterministic of rough surface in ABAQUS with pre-treatment in SolidWorks. Validation by comparing simple geometry which generated by this method and generated directly in ABAQUS shows a good agreement. Random geometry of a real rough surface and a deformable smooth ball is then taken for simulating real rough surface contact using finite element analysis. The result is covering on contact area, contact pressure, von Misses stress contour distribution and plot of surface topography. Random rough and sinusoidal solid surface were used in contact simulation. In the end, an experimental result is taken then generated to form finite element surface. The simulation results compared with the experimental result show identical contact area and surface topography at y-axis in x = 288 µm. These techniques, combined with the ability to model real surfaces in ABAQUS, can be used to help researchers in material science, mechanical engineering, and beyond to better understand micro scale surface contact mechanics. Key words: Rough surface, FEM, contact mechanics, asperity