A load dependent friction model for fully plastic contact conditions

In fully plastic contact conditions where nominal contact pressure is relatively high, like in metal forming processes, individual summits join together to form contact patches. The geometry of these contact patches depends on the contact pressure, which results in load-dependent frictional behaviour. This paper describes a model that takes into account this effect, and calculates contact and coefficient of friction in such conditions based on a good description of the shapes of contact patches instead of individual summits. The results show that as the nominal contact pressure increases, the effect of surface topography becomes less significant while the effect of the interfacial shear strength remains important.