Methods for the simulation of the pressure, stress, and temperature distribution in the contact of fractal generated rough surfaces

In this paper, the influence of surface roughness on the local tribological load with a dry sliding contact is studied. First, three artificial rough surfaces with similar structure but different asperity heights are generated and projected on a smooth ball. After that, a contact pattern is determined between a rough ball and a smooth surface taking into account the elastic only as well as the linear elastic-perfectly plastic material description. On the basis of the calculated contact pressure distribution, the subsurface stresses and a three-dimensional temperature distribution in the sliding contact are calculated. The solutions show that a low surface roughness not necessarily results in low local tribological load of the surface.