Three-dimensional elastic bodies in rolling contact (Q1188736)

Kalker is a well-known specialist in rolling contact problems which are extremely important in vehicle dynamics, notably in the rail-wheel interaction studies. As far as I know, the reviewed book is the only one completely devoted to this subject. The book consists of five chapters, conclusion, and five appendices. Formulation of the problem and an extended review of some rolling contact theories are presented in the first two chapters. The simplified and variational theories are discussed in chapters three and four. Chapter five gives some results for normal and frictional contact problems. Appendix A presents the basic equations of linear elasticity. Some theorems of mathematical programming are proven in Appendix B. Appendix C is a reproduction of \textit{J. J. Kalker}'s paper on numerical computation of the elastic field parameters [Commun. Appl. Numer. Methods 2, 401-410 (1986; Zbl 0592.73116)]. Generalization of the theory for the case of viscoelasticity is given in Appendix D. A short table of elliptic integrals and the creepage coefficients may be found in Appendix E. I have read the book thoroughly, and found it quite disappointing, mainly because of the way it is organized. There is nothing wrong in Kalker's attempt to make each chapters self-contained, though it leads to numerous repetitions of formulae and figures (for example, Fig. 2.14 is later repeated as 3.16 and 5.18). The problem is that neither the chapters nor the book itself is self-contained. One needs to read the original works by Carter, Johnson and others, including the Ph. D. Dissertation of Kalker himself, in order to understand many important details. It is advisable that the book be rewritten completely. The literature review should be shortened significantly, no formulae or figures are needed. The theory chapters, on the contrary, should be expanded in such a way that all the necessary details are given, thus making the book self-contained. The results due to each theory should be given immediately after the theory is discussed, rather than in a separate chapter, as it is now, thus avoiding unnecessary repetitions. The book mainly deals with a circular or elliptical patches of contact. It should be updated by including various recent results for general domains of contact.