Asperity contact modelling for measured surfaces

The analysis of surface roughness in contacts forms a major part of tribology in almost all application. In any contact in which asperity interactions occur their load carrying capacity must be considered however the separation at which asperity interaction first occurs and the load carrying capacity at that separation are due to the stochastic nature of the surface roughness of the two surfaces. A model that can accurately and quickly provide an estimation of the load carrying capacity as a function of surface separation is required for the specific surfaces used in such conjunctions from implementing surface data. The paper presented provides details of a procedure for modeling asperity interactions of rough surfaces from measured data. The model is validated against a deterministic approach before being applied to measured surfaces.