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Surface separation in elastoplastic contacts

A. Almqvist1 and B. N. J. Persson2,3,4

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Phys. Rev. E 113, 025509 – Published 26 February, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/24xf-f36n

Abstract

Understanding the contact between rough surfaces undergoing plastic deformation is crucial in many applications. We study the effect of plastic deformation on the surface separation between two solids with random roughness. Assuming a constant penetration hardness, we propose an iterative smoothing procedure (akin to elastoplastic “shakedown”) within Persson's multiscale contact mechanics theory to obtain the average surface separation by applying the elastic formulation to an effective power spectrum that accounts for plastic smoothing. Deterministic numerical simulations based on the boundary element method are used to validate the procedure and show good agreement with the theoretical predictions. The treatment also provides a route to incorporate plastic stiffening of the roughness as the stress state becomes increasingly hydrostatic at large plastic deformation.

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Phys. Rev. E 113, 025509– Published 26 February, 2026
  • Received 25 August 2025
  • Revised 15 November 2025
  • Accepted 23 January 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by Bibsam.

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