The mechanical-thermal-electrical contact behaviors between rough surfaces under cyclic loading

The influence mechanism of cyclic loading on the stiffness, thermal resistance, and electrical resistance of rough contact surfaces is a key issue in evaluating the interface contact performance of engineering structures under complex loading conditions. How to characterize this random contact process and reveal the correlation mechanism of different physical quantities at the contact interface, and to predict the changes of interface contact stiffness, thermal resistance and electrical resistance with cyclic load is a very critical and challenging problem. In this paper, a probabilistic characterization method for the random contact process is proposed. Then, based on this method, theoretical models are established to describe the mechanical behavior, thermal and electrical contact resistance of the rough contact surface under cyclic loading. The results show that the cyclic load has a significant effect on the thermal and electrical contact resistance. The stiffness, thermal insulation capacity, and electrical conductivity of the interface are closely related to the number of cyclic loads, which provides a reference for the evaluation of interface performance and life prediction of engineering structures in complex environments.