Contact Mechanics

  • type: Lecture (V)
  • chair: KIT Department of Mechanical Engineering
  • semester: SS 2025
  • time: Tue 2025-04-22
    14:00 - 15:30, weekly


    Tue 2025-04-29
    14:00 - 15:30, weekly

    Tue 2025-05-06
    14:00 - 15:30, weekly

    Tue 2025-05-13
    14:00 - 15:30, weekly

    Tue 2025-05-20
    14:00 - 15:30, weekly

    Tue 2025-05-27
    14:00 - 15:30, weekly

    Tue 2025-06-03
    14:00 - 15:30, weekly

    Tue 2025-06-17
    14:00 - 15:30, weekly

    Tue 2025-06-24
    14:00 - 15:30, weekly

    Tue 2025-07-01
    14:00 - 15:30, weekly

    Tue 2025-07-08
    14:00 - 15:30, weekly

    Tue 2025-07-15
    14:00 - 15:30, weekly

    Tue 2025-07-22
    14:00 - 15:30, weekly

    Tue 2025-07-29
    14:00 - 15:30, weekly


  • lecturer: Prof. Dr. Christian Greiner
  • sws: 2
  • lv-no.: 2181220
  • information: On-Site
Content

The course introduces contact mechanics of smooth and rough surface for non-adhesive and adhesive interfacial conditions. There will a computer lab held in parallel to the lecture that teaches numerical approaches to contact mechanical problems.

  1. Introduction: contact area and stiffness
  2. Theory of the elastic half-space
  3. Contact of nonadhesive spheres: Hertz theory
  4. Physics and chemistry of adhesive interactions at interfaces
  5. Contact of adhesive spheres: theories of Johnson-Kendall-Roberts, Derjaguin-Muller-Toporov and Maugis-Dugdale
  6. Surface roughness: topography, power spectral density, structure of real surfaces, fractal surfaces as a model, metrology
  7. Contact of nonadhesive rough surfaces: theories of Greenwood-Williamson, Persson, Hyun-Pei-Robbins-Molinari
  8. Contact of adhesive rough surface: theories of Fuller-Tabor, Persson and recent numerical results
  9. Contact of rough spheres: theory of Greenwood-Tripp and recent numerical results
  10. Lateral and sliding contact: theories of Cattaneo-Mindlin, Savkoor, Persson
  11. Applications of contact mechanics

The student

  • knows models for smooth and rough surfaces under non-adhesive and adhesive conditions and understands their strengths and limits
  • knows fundamental scaling relations for the functional dependency between contact area, stiffness and normal force
  • can apply numerical methods to study questions from materials science

preliminary knowledge in mathematics, physics and materials science recommended

regular attendance: 22,5 hours

self-study: 97,5 hours

oral exam ca. 30 minutes

Language of instructionGerman
Bibliography

K. L. Johnson, Contact Mechanics (Cambridge University Press, 1985)

D. Maugis, Contact, Adhesion and Rupture of Elastic Solids (Springer-Verlag, 2000)

J. Israelachvili, Intermolecular and Surface Forces (Academic Press, 1985)