Stress relaxation-related features of dynamic contact interaction of viscoelastic fluid-saturated and elastic bodies

The factors determining the rate of change in contact pressure during indentation of a compact viscoelastic fluid-saturated body into a flat surface of a massive elastic body are studied. This problem is important for a number of applications, including the interaction of human limbs with touch screens and fingerprint identification, as well as for the development of bioinspired artificial soft fingers. Using a numerical implementation of a coupled model of permeable viscoelastic materials, a possibility of constructing a generalized dependence (master curve) of contact pressure on time or indentation depth is shown. The master curve makes it possible to quantify the rate of change in contact pressure when applying different viscoelastic body and elastic ground materials as well as different loading velocities.