Rolling resistance of a rigid sphere with viscoelastic coatings

We present a novel three-dimensional boundary-element formulation that fully characterizes the mechanical behavior of the external boundary of a multi-layered viscoelastic coating attached to a hard rotating spherical core. The proposed formulation incorporates both, the viscoelastic, and the inertial effects of the steady-state rolling motion of the sphere, including the Coriolis effect. The proposed formulation is based on Fourier-domain expressions of all mechanical governing equations. It relates two-dimensional Fourier series expansions of surface displacements and stresses, which results in the formation of a compliance matrix for the outer boundary of the deformable coating, discretized into nodes. The computational cost of building such a compliance matrix is optimized, based on configurational similarities and symmetry. The proposed formulation is applied, in combination with a rolling contact solving strategy, to evaluate the viscoelastic rolling friction of a coated sphere on a rigid plane. Steady-state results generated by the proposed model are verified by comparison to those obtained from running dynamic simulations on a three-dimensional finite element model, beyond the transient. A detailed application example includes a verification of convergence and illustrates the dependence of rolling resistance on the applied load, the thickness of the coating, and the rolling velocity.