Thermoelastic contact responses of transversely isotropic coating considering heat partition

Transverse isotropy is typical material property of coating, which affects thermoelastic contact characteristics of coated materials a lot, without due attention. A thermoelastic contact model between a sliding ball and trans-versely isotropic coating considering heat partition is thus established with a semi-analytical method (SAM) in this investigation to reveal its effects. In the proposed model, general solution of thermoelastic field of trans-versely isotropic material is derived and transformed to the Fourier frequency domain; explicit analytical ex-pressions of frequency response functions (FRFs) for thermoelastic field of transversely isotropic coating are newly derived following the surface and interface boundary conditions. Employing the proposed model, effects of material thermal properties, coating thickness and sliding velocity on thermoelastic contact characteristics of transversely isotropic coating are explored, as well as sensitivity of the maximum temperature rise on system parameters. Simulation results indicate that contact pressure, heat partition coefficient and temperature rise increase with the sliding velocity; location of the peak temperature rise moves away from the contact center to a fixed value x =-0.45r as the sliding velocity increases; ratio of thermal conductivity of the coating to that of the substrate has significant effect on contact pressure, temperature rise distribution and heat partition coefficient, while ratio of thermal expansion coefficient of the coating to that of the substrate has slight influence; ther-moelastic responses are dominant by the coating-substrate system when the coating thickness changes from about 0.01 to 4 times contact radius; sensitivity of the maximum temperature rise on the six system parameters in a descending order is V > K(1)33 > K(1)11 > h > alpha(1)33 >alpha(1) 11 . This investigation may provide potential application in thermal-related contact failure analysis and guidance for coating optimal design.