Unilateral contact problem for a rigid disc inclusion embedded between two dissimilar elastic half-spaces

The present paper examines the axismmetric elasto-static problem where the contact between two smoothly compressed dissimilar elastic half-spaces is perturbed by a smooth disc inclusion of finite thickness. The paper develops the governing integral equation and the additional constraint which is associated with the separation condition. The analysis focuses on the estimation of the influence of the precompression and the elasticity mismatch between the bimaterial half-space regions on the radius of the separation zone. The paper also records a useful analytical approximation to the unilateral contact problem which is derived by prescribing a priori the displacements in the contact region beyond the separation zone.