An Experimental Study of the Effect of Load and Moving Speed on Free Rotating Rubber Contact using Fluorescence Microscopy

Abstract

An experimental study was conducted to evaluate the effect of the applied load and moving speed on the free rotating rubber specimen contact area on a smooth-surfaced glass plate. The contact area of the rubber specimen and flat surface was observed using fluorescence microscopy by utilizing ultraviolet as an excitation light source and pyranine as a dye substance. The apparent contact area between the rubber specimen and the flat surface was measured using image processing software based on the Otsu thresholding method. The result reveals an increasing trend line due to applied normal load dependency, which agreed with the Hertz theory. On moving-speed influence, the trend line of rubber contact increased at a lower speed, reaching the highest value at a moving speed of 8 mm/s, and decreased as the moving speed increased further.

Keywords

• apparent contact area
• fluorescence
• free rotating
• rubber