An Investigation of Fully Plastic Axisymmetric Spheroidal Indentation

Abstract Surface features, asperities, and indenters can vary greatly in shape. This variation in shape can influence the mechanical behavior of these features when they come into contact with other surfaces. This work investigates the contact between a half-space and an axisymmetric rigid spheroidal indenter using a fully plastic slip line theory technique. The predicted behavior differs significantly from other commonly assumed feature geometries such as spheres or cones. The ratio between the average pressure (i.e. hardness) to yield strength ratio varies in an interesting way. When the spheroidal indenter is blunter, the pressure to yield strength ratio decreases more gradually with contact radius, while if the indenter is narrower, it decreases more rapidly. The results also compare reasonably well to finite element predictions.