A deterministic FE contact analysis of 3D rough surfaces with textures and comparison with classic statistical contact models

Accurate contact calculations of real rough surfaces are fundamental but complicated. The model-based methods are convenient and straightforward. But these methods ignore some factors and may lead to less accurate results. This is especially true when considering multi-scale topographic features of engineering rough surfaces. Based on artificially generated rough surfaces, the deterministic contact analysis of two 3D rough surfaces is conducted by the finite element method(FEM). The calculations show that when the separation between surfaces reduces, results of classic model-based methods are quite different from those of this study, especially when the roughness distribution and textures are considered. As friction pairs are working under increasing harsh conditions, the accurate contact calculation in this paper will be of great significance.