Surface coupling effects on contact mechanics: contact area and interfacial separation between an elastic solid and a hard substrate with randomly rough, self-affine fractal surfaces

The objective of this study is to investigate both the contact area and the interfacial separation between two surfaces. Both surfaces are considered to be rough, one of them being elastic and the other one hard. The work is based on an extended version of Persson’s model of contact mechanics to study the behavior of the contact area, the interfacial separation and the pressure distribution. The results are compared with the case merely the hard substrate is rough. It is seen that introducing a roughness in the elastic surface decreases the real contact, if the surfaces are uncorrelated. A positive (negative) correlation increases (decreases) the real contact. A reverse pattern occurs for the width of the pressure distribution, as well as the interfacial separation (at equal pressures).