Asperity Creep Measured by the Reflection of Ultrasound at Rough Surface Contact

The asperity contact regions in static contact are subjected to very high stress. Deformation is plastic and the material can suffer localized creep that is not usually observed at conventional stress levels. Creep of the asperity contacts causes an increase in contact area and hence an increase in the adhesive component of friction. The strains are so small compared with the bulk deflections that they are hard to measure by displacement of strain transducers. However, one measurement approach is to use the reflection of an ultrasonic pulse since this depends only on the interface behavior, specifically its stiffness. In this study, ultrasound was used to investigate the increase in interfacial stiffness with time. A power law relationship between stiffness and hold time was observed for both steel and aluminum surfaces pressed together. An analytical model that assumes a simple geometry for the contact has been developed. A single asperity was considered to determine the geometry of the whole interface by superposition. The stiffness predicted by the model was compared with experimental data and was used to determine the creep rate exponent for the material.