In this study, partial slip contacts are analyzed employing three dimensional finite element analysis to investigate the effects of edge fillet and bulk stress on the specimen. Geometries selected for analysis are cylinder with and without an edge fillet contacting flat specimen and both the contacting members having same thickness/depth. Meshing techniques adopted ensure that the element dimension near the free edge of the contact interface is minimum, while keeping the total node count within manageable limits. Analyses are carried out using regular solid elements with reduced integration and full integration schemes. In addition to normal and tangential loads on pad, bulk stress is applied to the specimen. For cylindrical pad without fillet contacting flat specimen, fine mesh with full integration scheme is required for convergence in longitudinal stress which has steep gradients. For cylindrical pad with edge fillet contacting flat specimen, very fine mesh along with sub-modeling is necessary to achieve convergence and usage of full integration elements is essential to get accurate results. Contact tractions are found to be maximum at the mid-surface for the cylindrical pad without fillet. For the filleted pad, maximum contact tractions are near the free surface, close to the fillet and are higher than that in cylindrical pad without fillet. Slip is found to increase significantly with addition of bulk stress and is found to be maximum closer to the free surface in both cases. Damage parameters calculated with the resulting stress/strain indicate that the maximum likelihood of damage is at the mid-section for the case of cylinder without fillet and near the filleted edge for cylinder with fillet. © 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.