Normal stiffness and damping at lightly loaded rough planar contacts.pdfVIP

Tribology International 100 (2016) 171–177 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Tribology International journal homepage: /locate/triboint Normal stiffness and damping at lightly loaded rough planar contacts Andres Soom a,n, Catalin I. Serpe b a Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University at Buffalo, State University of New York, 318 Ja rvis Hall, Buffalo, NY 14260, USA b Seagate Technology, Computer Ave, Bloomington, MN 55435, USA article info Article history: Received 4 October 2015 Received in revised form 15 December 2015 Accepted 6 January 2016 Available online 12 January 2016 Keywords: Contact stiffness Damping Squeeze ?lm Rough surface contact Elastic contact Elasto-plastic contact abstract Two features of contact between rough surfaces are localized interactions between asperities and the presence of air in the gap. This gives rise to a contact compliance, a static and local property and, when contacts vibrate, mechanical damping due to squeeze ?lms of air. We examine the stiffness characteristics of clean surfaces in primarily elastic contact and both new worn surfaces in elasto-plastic contact. The squeeze-?lm damping can be related to the average gap between the surfaces. Experimental results are compared with analytical models. Qualitative and quantitative insight into both the stiffness and the gap can be obtained from the Greenwood–Williamson (1996) [1] paper that we are honoring at this symposium. 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The presence of surface roughness results in contact compliance at the interface between two surfaces. Also, the interface region consists mostly of air. Air can be drawn into and expelled out from the gap due to squeeze-?lm action, resulting in viscous damping. Other mechanisms of damping such as local slip, material hysteresis, plastic deformation and acoustic radiation can also be present but do not seem to be needed to explain most of the experimental results on which we wil