Plastic Deformation of Rough Metallic Surfaces

Abstract

Abstract The contact between rough metallic bodies almost always involves plastic flow in the area of real contact. We performed indentation experiments on sandblasted aluminum surfaces to explore the plastic deformation of asperities and modeled the contact mechanics using the boundary element method, combined with a simple numerical procedure to take into account the plastic flow. The theory can quantitatively describe the modification of the roughness by the plastic flow. Since the long-wavelength roughness determines the fluid leakage of metallic seals in most cases, we predict that the leakage can be estimated based on the elastoplastic contact mechanics model employed here.