Rotation effects in the global/local analysis of cantilever beam contact problems

Summary A modification of a previously developed method for solving the static contact problem of a rigid, cylindrical punch indenting an isotropic cantilever beam is presented. The boundary conditions at the contact site are modified by including beam upper-surface rotation effects. Local contact stress distributions, as well as global beam displacements, are computed for various ratios of contact width to beam thickness and for various positions of the indenter. The results are compared to those of a previous study in which the rotation effects were not considered, to Hertz theory of contact stress, and to beam theory solutions. It is noted that the rotation effects became prominent as the contact width approached the thickness of the beam.