The dynamics of rolling on rough surfaces is of great interest from the viewpoint of functionality, noise production, and for the diagnostics of many technical systems, such as gears, ball bearings, wheel–rail, tire–road systems, and many others. The main difficulty in analyzing the rolling noise is solving the problem of contact between two elastic rough bodies. In this work the method of dimensionality reduction was used for solving this problem.

The method of dimensionality reduction has been proposed for contact problems in [1] and [2].

The following video shows - in principle - a simulation of a rough wheel rolling on an elastic surface. Such a simulation was a part of this work.

Further publications of this work:

M. Popov, J. Benad, V. Popov, M. Heß - Akustische Emission beim Rollen, (Methode der Dimensionsreduktion in Kontaktmechanik und Reibung, Springer, 2013, pp 207-214).

M. Popov, J. Benad - Numerische Untersuchung von Emission in einem Rollkontakt mit rauen Oberflächen, (Proceeding of Tribologie-Fachtagung, Göttingen, 2013, pp. 1/1-1/6).

[1] - V.L. Popov, S.G. Psakhie. Numerical simulation methods in tribology - Tribology International, v. 40, 916-923. (2007)

[2] - M. Heß. Über die exakte Abbildung ausgewählter dreidimensionaler Kontakte auf Systeme mit niedrigerer räumlicher Dimension - Cuvillier Verlag, doctoral thesis. (2011)