Experimental Investigation of Energy Dissipation in Presliding Spherical Contacts Under Varying Normal and Tangential Loads

Interfacial damping in assembled structures is difficult to predict and control since it depends on numerous system parameters such as elastic mismatch, roughness, contact geometry, and loading profiles. Most recently, phase difference between normal and tangential force oscillations has been shown to have a significant effect on interfacial damping. In this study, we conduct microscale (asperity-scale) experiments to investigate the influence of magnitude and phase difference of normal and tangential force oscillations on the energy dissipation in presliding spherical contacts. Our results show that energy dissipation increases with increasing normal preload fluctuations and phase difference. This increase is more prominent for higher tangential force fluctuations, thanks to larger frictional slip along the contact interface. We also show that the energy dissipation and tangential fluctuations are related through a power law. The power exponents we identify from the experiments reveal that contacts deliver a nonlinear damping for all normal preload fluctuation amplitudes and phase differences investigated. This is in line with the damping uncertainties and nonlinearities observed in structural dynamics community.