A thermoelastic contact model between a sliding ball and a stationary half space distributed with spherical inhomogeneities

The present study explores the thermoelastic contact behaviours of two heterogeneous bodies subjected to both contact and frictional heat loads. The equivalent inclusion method (EIM) is employed to model the steady state heat conduction in contacting materials involving spherical inhomogeneities. The explicit analytical solutions for the thermal field inside and outside an inhomogeneity embedded in an infinite medium are derived, which are utilized to solve thermal field of semi-infinite medium with the help of the method of images. Further, a thermoelastic contact model for convex bodies with distributed spherical inhomogeneities is developed. The interaction between any adjacent inhomogeneities is fully considered. A conjugate gradient method and a fast Fourier transform algorithm are introduced to enhance the computation efficiency. Finally, parametric study about the influences of inhomogeneity material properties and contact parameters on the volumetric stress integral of the contact body is conducted, demonstrating the fatigue performance of heterogeneous contact bodies under thermoelastic loads.