Senior Design Projects

ECS193 A/B Winter & Spring 2021

Design and Development of Contact Mechanics Analysis Tool

Email **********
Tanner Finney
UC DAVIS Dept. of Chemical Engineering

Project's details

Design and Development of Contact Mechanics Analysis Tool
When a sphere is brought into contact with a flat surface, reflected light between the two surfaces generates an interference
pattern known as Newton’s rings. Within the Newton’s rings,
the contacting area of radius r of the two surfaces is readily
observable with optical microscopy as a dark or light central
disk (Figure 1). We seek to develop image analysis software
to measure the radius of curvature, R, and contact area as a
function of load, L.
Students will assist the design and development of an anal-
ysis tool to accurately process images of Newton’s rings and
contact area (Figure 1b). The underlying math and analysis
methods have largely been developed, but need refinement and
validation. Proof-of-concept code has partially been developed.
Project team will work with graduate student Tanner Finney
and Prof. Tonya Kuhl. Team will meet for approximately 1
hour every 1-2 weeks.
A working image processing tool that ingests a sequence of Newton’s rings/Contact area images and returns
the center of the contact, radius of curvature, and area of contact as a function of load. Version control will
be done via GitHub. Thorough documentation of code is necessary.
A working knowledge of Python and C++ is recommended. Students will gain experience with image analysis,
scientific computing in both Python and C++. During development, code will be kept private. Likely will be
released as free software, GPL or MIT license, later.
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30-60 min weekly or more
Open source project
Attachment Click here
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