Solution of wear problems for monotonic and periodic sliding with p-version of finite element method

The relative sliding motion of two elastic bodies in contact under compressive tractions induces wear process and contact shape evolution. The transient process tends to a steady state at fixed contact stress and strain distribution. This state was assumed to correspond to the minimum of the wear dissipation power. The stationary condition of the response functional then provides the contact pressure distribution. The present paper is aimed at extending to results of previous analyses [1–5] of steady state conditions to cases of periodic sliding of contacting bodies, assuming the existence of cyclic steady state conditions. The wear dissipation in the steady cyclic period is then minimized with respect to the contact pressure distribution. The solutions of several cases of wear processes induced by translational and rotational sliding illustrate the applicability of the proposed variational method.