Vertical Action of a Concentric Multi-Annular Punch on a Transversely Isotropic Elastic Half-Space

In this paper, the response of a transversely isotropic half-space under the punch action of a set of rigid concentric annuli frictionless contacts is considered. By virtue of a compact potential representation and Hankel transforms, a set of ring-load Green's functions for the axisymmetric equations of equilibrium are derived and shown to be expressible in terms of standard elliptic integrals. With the aid of a rigorous yet highly efficient numerical method, the integral equation is solved for the multi-interval singular mixed boundary value problem. Detailed solutions to illustrate the performance of the computational approach and the influence of the degree of anisotropy and contact conditions on the mechanics problem are presented. [DOI: 10.1115/1.4005546]