Role of rough surface on contact between magneto-electro-elastic materials and orthotropic solid

• Partial contact in smart structure is considered.
• Expressions for stresses, electric displacements and magnetic inductions are given.
• Contact width increases remarkably with the external loading increasing.
• Piezoelectric phase volume fraction has no influence on the surface contact stress.
• Piezoelectric phase volume fraction affects the surface electric displacement.

The solid materials׳ surfaces will be found to be rough if magnified sufficiently, no matter how flat they may superficially appear to be. This article establishes a model to examine the effect of rough surface on the contact behavior of magneto-electro-elastic materials with partial or full contact with an orthotropic solid pressed by external loading. The lack between the two surfaces is featured by the gap at the peaks of the rough surfaces. It is found that when the external loading is far less than the critical loading, which is the minimum loading to approach the full contact, the relationship between the contact width and external loading, and the surface contact distribution have the same form as between two purely elastic cylinders in the theory of Hertzian contact. Numerical experiments are done to demonstrate how the component volume fraction of magneto-electro-elastic materials affects the contact behavior. Numerical results show that the contact region between magneto-electro-elastic materials and orthotropic solid is dominated by the external loading other than the component volume fraction of magneto-electro-elastic materials.