Contact behavior of surfaces containing elliptical asperities with Gaussian and non-Gaussian height distributions

This study investigates the effects of asperity interactions on the mean surface separation and real contact area of rough surfaces containing elliptical asperities with Gaussian and non-Gaussian height distributions. The elastic-plaqtic contact behavior of surfaces with elliptical asperities with both single-mode and bimodal height distributions are studied. The results indicate that the effects of asperity interactions become more pronounced as the effective radius ratio of the asperities increases. The findings also reveal that the real contact load, the real contact area, and the surface contact mode observed for elliptical asperities are significantly different from those noted for spherical asperities. Furthermore, it is found that the form of the non-Gaussian height distribution has a significant effect on the contact mode of rough surfaces. Specifically, the contact mode of surfaces with a negatively skewed height distribution is found to be more elastic than that of surfaces with a Gaussian height distribution.