Normal contact stiffness of the elliptic area between two asperities

A new expression for contact deformation is given, and the normal contact stiffness between single asperities is derived according to Hooke's law. A contact model between two ellipsoidal asperities is simulated by the FE method, the result compared with the theoretical solution. It is found that the curves of the normal contact stiffness versus the included angle in the principal curvature direction show similar trends and evolve as a cosine feature. The effects of the parameters on normal contact stiffness are found to show that normal contact stiffness increases and reaches the upper limit gradually with an increase in these parameters.