Pressure distribution for patchlike contact in seals with frictional heating, thermal expansion, and wear

Sliding contact in seals is known to change at high sliding speed from initially uniform pressure to a deformed state where contact is restricted to small patches of the surface. An earlier analysis of such contact was based upon the assumption of uniform pressure on the small patches. The present study draws upon a thermoelastic influence function to provide simultaneous equations for pressure on subdivisions of the patches. The final result is that at high wear rate (and, consequently, high traversal speed of the patch along the surface of the more conductive body of the contacting pair) the pressure distribution becomes roughly triangular with the maximum pressure toward the leading edge of the patch.