Study on the Friction Contact Model between a Rigid Ball and Rubber Surface with Various Rubber Materials: A Numerical Investigation

A type of rubber material will have a different response when receiving external frictional loads. In this simulation, the friction contact phenomenon is modeled as friction contact between a rigid ball and the surface of a rubber material for several variations of rubber material, namely, Styreine Butadiene Rubber reinforced with carbon black (SBR-25), soft type tire rubber (type-S) and hard type tire rubber (type-H) where the two contact surfaces are still smooth and have not been abraded at all. Analysis of the friction indentation test using the finite element method with the help of ANSYS Workbench software, which is one of the finite element method software that is popularly used. In the simulation, there are variations in indentation depth, namely 0.1 mm, 0.4 mm and 0.7 mm with a constant speed of 15 mm/s at each depth. The rubber test material is assumed to be a hyperelastic material in contact with a perfectly rigid spherical material. This main research aims to determine the magnitude of the deformation and stress of the rubber material and the coefficient of friction from frictional contact with variations in the rubber material.