On contact spots details of rough surface contact using morphologic image processing

In the rough surface contact research, the real contact area has long been the primary focus, however, the details of contact spots, such as the size, morphology, and distribution which directly impact thermal and electrical contact performance, are basically overlooked. In the present study, an efficient and straightforward method using morphological image processing is proposed to obtain the details of contact spots from rough surface contact solved by finite element simulation. This study shows that the present method can better evaluate the real contact area and enable to reveal the evolutions of contact spots, including the number, average area, variance, and average gap of contact spots. Three evolution stages of rough surface contact are identified as Involving, Growing, and Merging stages according to the critical number of contact spots. The effects of characteristic parameters of rough surfaces are also investigated.