A Comparative Study on Equivalent Modeling of Rough Surfaces Contact

Greenwood and Tripp (GT model) have proposed that the contact analysis of two rough surfaces (two-rough-surface contact model) could be considered as an equivalent rough surface in contact with a rigid flat (single-rough-surface contact model). In this paper, by virtue of finite element method, the normal contact analysis was performed with two-rough-surface contact model and its equivalent single-rough-surface contact model, and it was verified that the resultant normal contact forces are in good agreement with each other for these two models, meanwhile the equivalent stress is a little bit lower for two-rough-surface model due to shoulder-to-shoulder contact. In contrast, the sliding contact analysis was also performed with these two models, respectively, and the results show a great disparity with each other in all contact parameters due to the strong plowing effects in two-rough-surface model. Therefore, this equivalence approach proposed by Greenwood and Tripp is only valid for normal contact of rough surfaces and not valid for sliding contact.