Deformation of an elastic helix in contact with a rigid cylinder (Q1368292)

Within this paper, a helix in contact with a rigid cylinder is analysed without friction. In order to include contact constraints, the equations for small deformations are formulated in terms of displacements and rotations. It turns out that for a helix length which is comparable with the length of twist or slightly longer, the contact occurs only at a few points. The dependence of the resultant contact forces and displacements on the geometrical parameters of the helix and the cylinder is investigated in detail.