The critical condition for intrusion of a steel ball into sliding contact space

The intrusion tests of a ball into sliding contact space were carried out. A stainless steel ball with 3.175 mm radius was used as a sphere particle to study the critical intrusion condition of the ball into the contact space between the organic glass and the polyurethane rubber. The effect of intrusion angle of the contact space and the friction coefficients among the ball, the organic glass and the polyurethane rubber on the critical condition were studied experimentally. Then, the intrusion conditions for the ball into the contact space were analysed theoretically. The results showed that the calculated critical intrusion angles agreed well with the experimental ones. Finally, the intrusion diagram as a function of critical intrusion angle, friction coefficient mu(1) and mu(2) (here, mu(1) is the friction coefficient between the ball and the polyurethane rubber, mu(2) is the friction coefficient between the ball and the organic glass) was introduced to evaluate the intrusion performance of a ball into the sliding contact space. Copyright (C) 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.