Tangential loading of elastic bodies in contact

This paper concerns the elastic contact between two bodies which are pressed together by normal loads and are given a tangential relative displacement. The tangential load is not sufficient to cause sliding over the entire contact region so that a portion of the contact sticks while the remainder slips. The two bodies can have different geometrical and elastic properties. Using rectangular subdivisions for the normal and tangential stresses, a numerical scheme for the complete sliding and stick-slip cases is developed. The contact region for complete sliding is first found and assumed to be approximately correct for the stick-slip case. The method is iterative and convergence to the unknown shape of the contact region (complete slip) and the shape of the stick region (stick-slip) is rapid.