Adhesive elastic plastic contact: theory and numerical simulation

We examine the adhesive contact of an elastic‐plastic sphere and a rigid plane. We assume that the contact is normal and frictionless. First, a Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulation of the contact of an amorphous van der Waals solid is performed. Next, a simple model (EP) for the elastic plastic contact is presented, which has as asymptotic limit the singular model (SS) developed by Mesarovic and Johnson in [1]. Finally, the numerical results are quantitatively compared and discussed in relation to the EP and SS models, and qualitatively with Tomas' model [2]. Acknow This work has been supported by the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia of the Spanish Government under contract number BFM2003‐1739, and by the Junta de Andalucía under project FQM‐421. A significant technical part of this work has been additionally performed under the Project HPC‐EUROPA (RII3‐CT‐2003‐506079), with the support of the European Community – Research Infrastructure Action under the FP6 “Structuring the European Research Area” Programme.