STABILITY OF THERMOELASTIC CONTACT FOR THE ALDO MODEL

A perturbation method is used to investigate the stability of a simple one-dimensional rod model of thermoelastic contact which exhibits multiple steady-state solutions. A thermal contact resistance is postulated which is a continuous function of the contact pressure or separation. It is found that solutions involving substantial separation and/or contact pressures are always stable, but these are separated by unstable imperfect contact solutions in which one of the rods is very lightly loaded or has a very small separation. The results can be expressed in terms of the minimization of a certain energy function. © 1981 by ASME.