Thermal-Mechanical Contact of a Sphere on a Layered Surface

The effect of coating thickness is investigated during transient thermal-mechanical contact between a sphere and a layered surface. The range of coating thicknesses studied was from 0.001≤t/R≤0.1, where t is the coating thickness and R is the radius of the contacting sphere. It was found that for the range of coating thickness and material properties investigated, the coating thickness has only a small effect on the mechanical deformation of the interface. On the other hand, the layer thickness has a large effect on the temperature rise of the interface.