The temperature variation within two elastic bodies in perfect thermoelastic contact may cause the contact area to become convex and hence lead to a reduction in the size of the contacting surface. In receding thermoelastic contact problems, the final size of the contact zone is independent of the applied loads, being only affected by the thermomechanical properties of the solids. However, the final size of the contact zone can also be affected by the conductive and convective boundary conditions at the separation zones of the contacting surfaces. In those regions, the heat flux is a function of the separation between the solids, so the thermal and the thermoelastic problems are highly coupled. For this reason, this work studies the three-dimensional receding thermomechanical contact problem under conductive and convective boundary conditions at the interstitial zones of the contact area. After the validation of the numerical scheme presented to solve this problem, several examples are presented and discussed in detail. The results reveal that conductive and convective interstitial boundary conditions have a significant effect not only on the size of the contact zone, but also on the resulting tractions, temperature and heat flux distributions.

中文翻译：

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三维后退热弹性接触问题中对流和传导间隙条件对接触区尺寸的热弹性影响

完全热弹性接触的两个弹性体内部的温度变化可能会导致接触面积变得凸出，从而导致接触面的尺寸减小。在后退热弹性接触问题中，接触区的最终尺寸与施加的载荷无关，仅受固体热机械特性的影响。然而，接触区的最终尺寸也会受到接触表面分离区的传导和对流边界条件的影响。在这些区域，热通量是固体之间分离的函数，因此热和热弹性问题是高度耦合的。为此原因，这项工作研究了在接触区间隙区域的传导和对流边界条件下的三维后退热机械接触问题。在为解决这个问题而提出的数值方案验证之后，给出并详细讨论了几个例子。结果表明，传导和对流间隙边界条件不仅对接触区的大小有显着影响，而且对产生的牵引力、温度和热通量分布也有显着影响。