Contact of a spherical probe with a stretched rubber substrate

Abstract

We report on a theoretical and experimental investigation of the normal contact of stretched neo-Hookean substrates with rigid spherical probes. Starting from a published formulation of surface Green's function for incremental displacements on a pre-stretched, neo-Hookean, substrate (L.H. Lee J. Mech. Phys. Sol. 56 (2008) 2957-2971), a model is derived for both adhesive and non-adhesive contacts. The shape of the elliptical contact area together with the contact load and the contact stiffness are predicted as a function of the in-plane stretch ratios λx and λy of the substrate. The validity of this model is assessed by contact experiments carried out using an uniaxally stretched silicone rubber. for stretch ratio below about 1.25, a good agreement is observed between theory and experiments. Above this threshold, some deviations from the theoretical prediction are induced as a result of the departure of the mechanical response of the silicone rubber from the neo-Hokeean description embedded in the model.