Existence and Regularity for Dynamic Viscoelastic Adhesive Contact with Damage

A model for the dynamic process of frictionless adhesive contact between a viscoelastic body and a reactive foundation, which takes into account the damage of the material resulting from tension or compression, is presented. Contact is described by the normal compliance condition. Material damage is modelled by the damage field, which measures the pointwise fractional decrease in the load-carrying capacity of the material, and its evolution is described by a differential inclusion. The model allows for different damage rates caused by tension or compression. The adhesion is modelled by the bonding field, which measures the fraction of active bonds on the contact surface. The existence of the unique weak solution is established using the theory of set-valued pseudomonotone operators introduced by Kuttler and Shillor (1999). Additional regularity of the solution is obtained when the problem data is more regular and satisfies appropriate compatibility conditions.