Rough contacts near full contact with a very simple asperity model

• Recently, a novel asperity theory has been suggested where “asperities” are defined from the full contact solution “surface”.
• We provide a much simpler such new model avoiding the complexities of many asperity models suggested so far.
• We compare with existing detailed numerical results.

Recently, asperity theories in contact mechanics of rough surfaces have been extended in the range near full contact by elaborating on the idea of searching a corrective solution to the tensile regions of the full contact solution. The full contact solution defines a “surface” on which asperity theory can be applied. It is here shown that a very simple prediction can be made for the non-contact area, improving the accuracy near full contact with respect to the other simple solution available, that of Persson.