Theoretical and Experimental Study on Normal Contact Stiffness of Joint Surfaces with Surface Texturing

Abstract

Effects of surface texturing on the normal contact stiffness of joint surfaces had been investigated by experiments in many previous researches; however, there are relatively few theoretical models in this regard. The rough surface with surface texturing can be divided into two parts: the textured zone and the remaining zone, and their theoretical models are established respectively in this research. For the textured zone, the texture is modeled theoretically based on the three-dimensional topographic data obtained via a 3D-CCMP1 type laser profilometer from TRIMOS. For the remaining zone, the model of normal contact stiffness is established based on the fractal theory for the surface topography description and elastic-plastic deformation of surface asperities, and the structure function method is used to calculate the fractal dimension of rough surface profiles. In the experiment, the normal contact stiffness of specimens is obtained under different normal loads, and the test results are compared with the theoretical predictions. The result shows that the predictions of proposed theoretical model are in good agreement with the experimental data. For the joint surfaces with Sa>2.69 μm, the normal contact stiffness can be effectively increased through proper surface texturing.