Unbonded contact between a circular plate and an elastic half-space

The paper concerns the unbonded contact between a thin circular plate of finite radius, governed by Kirchhof or Reissner theory, pressed by means of rotationally symmetric distributed load and its own weight against the surface of an elastic half-space. The contact is assumed frictionless and unbonded. A Hankel transform solution is used for the half-space and the plate deflection is found by inverting the plate equation. The coefficients in a power expansion are obtained by equating plate and half-space deflections at a number of points in the contact region. The variation of contact radius with plate radius, the radius of the uniformly applied load, and the relative stiffness of plate and foundation, is displayed in a series of figures.