Micro-scale analysis of rough surfaces using non-conforming meshes

Abstract

This work presents a finite element model of the contact between a flat rigid surface and a rough deformable elastoplastic body, enabling the micro-scale analysis of the contact conditions. To assure the computational efficiency a non-conforming mesh is adopted to describe the deformable body. The results show that the model can capture the main effects of the bulk material constitutive behaviour, which is known to have a significant impact on the problem, as well on local changes on the friction conditions.