Frictionless Contact of Layered Half-Planes, Part II: Numerical Results

Abstract

In Part I of this paper, analytical development of a method was presented for the solution of frictionless contact problems of multilayered half-planes consisting of an arbitrary number of isotropic, orthotropic, or monoclinic layers arranged in any sequence. The local/global stiffness matrix approach similar to the one proposed by Bufler (1971) was employed in formulating the surface mixed boundary condition for the unknown stress in the contact region. This approach naturally facilitates decomposition of the integral equation for the contact stress distribution on the top surface of an arbitrarily laminated half-plane into singular and regular parts that, in turn, can be solved using a numerical collocation technique. In Part II of this paper, a number of numerical examples is presented addressing the effect of off-axis plies on contact stress distribution and load versus contact length in layered half-planes laminated with unidirectionally reinforced composite plies. The results indicate that for the considered unidirectional composite, the load versus contact length response is significantly influenced by the orientation of the surface layer and the underlying half-plane, while the corresponding contact stress profiles are considerably less affected.