Development of a method for the analysis of mixed friction problems

This article deals with a holistic approach to the numerical analysis of mixed friction. By means of the finite element method, the influence of a set of selected parameters on the behaviour of the frictional contact system will be determined. For this, a three-dimensional parameterized FEM-model will be presented, which couples the equations of the structure mechanics with the Navier-Stokes-theory. To consider the roughness of machined surfaces, virtual surfaces are generated to represent the characteristics of usual manufacturing methods. At the Institute of product development, the theoretical approaches were implemented into a software code, which makes use of stochastic algorithms to obtain rough surfaces with the desired characteristics. The characterization of these virtual surfaces is done by the abbot curve and a roughness parameter. The generation of the surfaces is done by an evolutionary optimizer.