A Novel Method of Designing Random Rough Surface Considering Its Contact Force-Deformation Characteristic Requirement

Abstract The height probability distribution (HPD) of random rough surface topography has significant effect on its contact behaviors. In this paper, an optimization model to calculate the optimal HPD of random rough surface topography to make its contact force-deformation characteristic satisfy the given target force-deformation characteristic was established. In the solution to calculate the optimal HPD, using Bezier interpolation curve to represent the curve of HPD function and using the positions of the control points of Bezier interpolation curve as optimization variables were proposed. The solution was validated by numerical simulations implemented using MATLAB. The effect of the number of the control points on the minimum objective function value was investigated. Through analyzing the obtained result, we found the most appropriate number of the control points is 35. Comparison with the method using height parameters as optimization variables in literature was implemented. It was found that the proposed method is applicable to broader types of contact force-deformation characteristic requirements than the method using height parameters as optimization variables.