Erratum: “Asperity Interaction and Substrate Deformation in Statistical Summation Models of Contact Between Rough Surfaces” [Journal of Applied Mechanics, 81(4), p. 041012]

The purpose of this errata note is to reinterpret the effect of asperity interaction and to correct the related formulations given in Eqs. (5)–(7) of the original paper. For a rough surface in contact, deformation of a contacting asperity will also shift its neighboring asperities down through substrate deformation (interaction deformation). Specifically, given a single contacting asperity, the total interaction deformation Ω_a caused by this asperity depends on the distance to its nth neighbor, r_n, and the total number of nth neighbors, $kn=ηπ(rn2−rn−12)$⁠: