Plane Static Isotropic Contact Problems

In the contact problems that are the subject of this book, we shall deal with cases in which the external forces creating the state of stress are applied by different means at different parts of the surface. However, we can establish several fairly general types of boundary conditions, to various combinations of which most contact problems can be reduced. External forces acting on an elastic body can be applied directly to the surface, for instance by hydrostatic pressure, or through the presence of another body, rigid or elastic. In this section, we shall consider the case in which the bodies transmitting the forces to the elastic body are rigid.