Elasto-plastic finite-element analysis of 2-D rolling-plus-sliding contact with temperature-dependent bearing steel material properties

Abstract A coupled thermo-mechanical finite-element model developed to study 2-D rolling-plus-sliding contact on a kinematically hardening substrate is described. Such a contact condition is simulated by repeatedly translating a thermo-mechanical load across the surface of the substrate. The substrate is modeled as a semi-infinite half-space represented by a 2-D finite-element mesh with appropriate boundary condition on the displacements and temperature gradients. Elastic-linear-kinematic-hardening-plastic (ELKP) material constitutive relations are used to model the material behavior of 52100 bearing steel. Effects of frictional heating and temperature-dependent material and thermo-physical properties on the substrate are studied. The stress and strain distributions developed are reported.