Shakedown analyses for rolling and sliding contact problems

There is a range of problems where repeated rolling and sliding contact occurs over a half space of an elastic–perfectly plastic material. For such problems shakedown and limit analysis provide significant advantages over other forms of analysis when a global understanding of deformation behaviour is required. In this paper, a recently developed numerical upper bound method, the Linear Matching Method (LMM), for shakedown analyses is applied to the solution of a problem previously considered by Ponter et al. [Ponter, A.R.S., Hearle, A.D., Johnson, K.L., 1985. J. Mech. Phys. Solids 33 (4), 339–362] for a moving Hertzian contact, with sliding friction. This semi-analytic solution is an upper bound based on certain specific kinematic assumptions. We show that the Ponter, Hearle and Johnson solution is a reasonable approximate solution for a circular contact area but is less accurate for an elliptic contact area. For an elliptic contact area LLM solutions converge to the line contact solution. The effect of the non-coincidence of the direction of travel and slide is also investigated.