Receding Contact

Abstract

Filon (1903) (Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, pp. 63–155 [201], 1903) investigated the state of stress in an infinite elastic layer of thickness 2h subjected to equal and opposite concentrated forces on the two faces, as shown in Fig. 11.1a. He showed that the normal traction on the plane of symmetry [the dashed line in Fig. 11.1a] becomes tensile for |x|>1.35h, where x is measured from the line of action of the forces. He deduced correctly that if a single layer of thickness h were pressed against a frictionless rigid plane, the layer must lift off from the plane at the edges, as shown in Fig. 11.1b.