Frictionless contact of two parallel congruent rigid cylindrical surfaces coated with thin elastic transversely isotropic incompressible layers: an analytic solution

The paper deals with a frictionless contact problem of two parallel rigid cylindrical surfaces, one encased in the other, coated with thin elastic transversely isotropic and incompressible layers. The coatings of the two circular cylinders may differ. A simplifying approximation for the displacement in the coating enables the problem to be formulated using stress and strain averaged through the coating thickness (for the method, see [Matthewson, M.J., 1981. Axi-symmetric contact on thin compliant coatings. J. Mech. Phys. Solids 29, 89–113]). Analytical results are obtained for the contact width and contact stress distribution. Given this contact stress distribution, an asymptotic analytical solution for the displacement in the coating is then obtained. The results are applied to the human ankle joint and generalized for articular cartilage with depth-dependent properties.