Regularization of 2D frictional contacts for rigid body dynamics

Classic rigid body mechanics does not provide frictional forces acting in a 2D contact interface between two bodies during sticking. This is due to the statical undeterminacy related with this problem. Many technical systems, e.g. disk clutches, have such surface-to-surface contacts and it is sometimes desirable to treat them as rigid body systems despite the 2D contact. Alternatively it is possible to model the systems using elastic instead of rigid bodies, but this might lead to certain drawbacks. Here a new regularization model of such 2D contacts between rigid bodies is proposed. It is derived from a material model for elasto-plasticity in continuum mechanics. Only dry friction is taken into account. (© 2006 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Review on contact simulation of beveloid and cycloid gears and application of a modern approach to treat deformations

Gear drives are key components for all kinds of machines as well as of industrial equipment. Therein, beveloid gears and cycloid gears are increasingly used in industry. Gaining a more comprehensive understanding of those types of gears is essential. However, the measurement of the dynamic response of these gears is not an option due to the high cost of the required experiments. Along with the development of computer technology, several numerical tools and methods to study gears with standard and non-standard flank profiles have been introduced. Various works related to standard gears or beveloid and cycloid gears have been published. In this study, a contemporary review about the modelling and contact simulation of beveloid and cycloid gear drives will be given. Some studies will also be introduced to present an efficient approach to simulate contact forces and contact characteristics of gear wheels with standard and non-standard tooth profiles considering deformations too.     

Contact Modeling in Multibody Systems with Elastic Bodies in High-Frequency Applications

This paper discusses the refinement of multibody models by integration of flexible bodies and by considering nonlinearities from contacts. It presents common approaches for contact modeling in multibody simulations and strategies to include flexible bodies. A contact model is implemented in the elastic multibody model. Experimental results show that significant effects of system dynamics can be modeled by use of a multibody model including elastic bodies and contacts. (© 2014 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Stress-driven local-solution approach to quasistatic brittle delamination

A unilateral contact problem between elastic bodies at small strains glued by a brittle adhesive is addressed in the quasistatic rate-independent setting. The delamination process is modeled as governed by stresses rather than by energies. This leads to a specific scaling of an approximating elastic adhesive contact problem, discretized by a semi-implicit scheme and regularized by a BV-type gradient term. An analytical zero-dimensional example motivates the model and a specific local-solution concept. Two-dimensional numerical simulations performed on an engineering benchmark problem of debonding a fiber in an elastic matrix further illustrate the validity of the model, convergence, and algorithmical efficiency even for very rigid adhesives with high elastic moduli.     

Hertzian contact problem: Numerical reduction and volumetric modification

A technique for the analytical formulation and numerical implementation of an elastic contact model for rigid bodies in the framework of the Hertzian contact problem is described. The normal elastic force and the semiaxes of the contact area are computed so that the problem is sequentially reduced to a scalar transcendental equation depending on complete elliptic integrals of the first and second kinds. Based on the classical solution to the Hertzian contact problem, an invariant volumetric force function is proposed that depends on the geometric characteristics of interpenetration of two undeformed bodies. The normal forces computed using the force function agree with results obtained previously for non-Hertzian contact of elastic bodies. As an example, a ball bearing is used to compare the contact dynamics of elastic bodies simulated in the classical Hertzian model and its volumetric modification.     

The contact problem with the bulk application of intermolecular interaction forces (a refined formulation)

A refined formulation of the contact problem when there are intermolecular interaction forces between the contacting bodies is considered. Unlike the traditional formulation, it is assumed that these forces are applied to points within the body, rather than to the surface of the deformable body as a contact pressure, and that the body surface is load-free. Solutions of the contact problems for a thin elastic layer attached to an absolutely rigid substrate and for an elastic half-space are analysed. The refined and traditional formulations of the problem when there is intermolecular interaction are compared. ©2013     

Non-linearity of multibody dynamic equations with respect to Lagrange multipliers: application to railway dynamics

In this paper, the dynamics of multibody systems with closed kinematical chains of bodies is considered. The main focus is set on non-linearity of the multibody equations with respect to the Lagrange multipliers. When closed chains are considered, loop cutting procedure is a solution to express the constraint equations associated with the loops. Dynamic equations of the multibody tree-like structure are thus completed with the constraint forces via the Lagrange multipliers. In the considered case of railway vehicles, constraints arise from the contact between the rigid wheels and the rails. Corresponding contact forces applied to the wheels appears via the Lagrange multipliers λ and the tangent creep forces as well. Resulting differential-algebraic equations can be transformed into an ODE system and then time-integrated using the coordinate partitioning method [3], when the system is linear with respect to λ. This paper presents an algorithm allowing us to solve this system in case of nonlinearities with respect to λ, which is typical of wheel/rail contact force models. (© 2009 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

On computer implementation of the Hertz elastic contact model and its simplifications

The paper is concerned with an elastic contact model of rigid bodies which is developed in the framework of the Hertz model. For this new model, we suggest more effective algorithms with reduced computational time. We also present an algorithm for representation of the geometry of the contacting surfaces in the local contact coordinate system. This coordinate system tracks permanently the surfaces of the bodies, which are able to contact. An approach to computation of the normal elastic force is presented. It is based on the reduction to a single transcendental scalar equation that includes the complete elliptic integrals of the first and second kinds. The computational time in the Hertz-model simulation was considerably reduced due to the use of the differential technique for computation of the complete elliptic integrals and due to the replacement of the implicit transcendental equation by a differential one. Using the classic solution of the Hertz contact problem, we then present an invariant form for the force function, which depends on the geometric properties of the intersection of the undeformed volumes occupied with the rigid bodies (so-called volumetric model). The reduced expression for the force function obtained is shown to be different from that accepted in the classic contact theory hypotheses. Our expression has been tested in several examples dealing with bodies that contact elastically including Hertz’s classical model. In the context of the Hertz contact problem, an approximate model for computation the resulting wrench of the dry friction tangent forces is set up. The wrench consists of the total friction force and the drilling friction torque. The approach under consideration naturally extends the contact model constructed earlier. The dry friction forces and torque are integrated over the contact elliptic spot. Generally an analytic computation of the integrals mentioned is bulk and cumbersome leading to decades of terms that include rational functions depending on complete elliptic integrals. To be able to implement a fast computer model of elastically contacting bodies, one should first set up an approximate model in the way initially proposed by Contensou. To verify the model developed, we have used results obtained by several authors. First we test our method on the Tippe-Top dynamic model. Simulations show that the top’s evolution can be verified with a high quality compared with the use of the theory of set-valued functions. In addition, the ball bearing dynamic model has been also used for a detailed verification of different approaches to the computation of tangent forces. Then the friction model of the regularized Coulomb type and the approximate Contensou one, each embedded into the whole bearing dynamic model, were thoroughly tested and compared. It turned out that the simplified Contensou approach provides a computer model that runs even faster compared with the case of the point contact. In addition, the volumetric model demonstrated a reliable behavior and an acceptable accuracy.     

The Maxwell-Contact

In multibody systems, two alternative approaches exist to compute contact forces between bodies. The unilateral constraint contact and the unilateral regularized contact do not take into account the influence of the deformation due to other contacts on a body using rigid body dynamics. In this paper, a third alternative, i.e. the Maxwell-Contact, is derived coupling the deformations of different contacts on one body quasi-statically. An academic example validates the fundamental properties of the contact model and the application in a simulation of a pushbelt CVT shows improved results. (© 2012 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Direct numerical simulation of particles in a fluid interacting with a wall

We develop a code to be applied in the context of the cleaning of wafer surfaces by hydrodynamic forces. Our goal is to study the detachment of (submicron) particles, exposed to a shear flow, from a wall by means of direct numerical simulation. The particles are treated as rigid bodies fully interacting with the fluid. To simulate moving particles in the fluid we implement an immersed boundary method with direct forcing into OpenFOAM. The particle-wall interaction is treated with a soft contact model. As first simple examples we study the elastic normal impact of a cylinder onto a wall as well as the onset of sliding of a cylinder pressed to a horizontal wall by gravity under a time-depended drag force. (© 2011 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Axially symmetric problem of local separation of an elastic half-space from a rigid base due to a point source of cooling

An axially symmetric problem on the unilateral frictionless contact of an elastic half-space and a rigid thermally insulated base under the action of a subsurface source of cooling, which leads to local loss of contact over a circular region, is considered. The intensity of the source at which the local loss of contacts begins is determined. The dependence of the geometrical parameters of the gap between the surfaces of the bodies on the intensity of the source of cooling and its location relative to the surface is analyzed in detail.     

Estimating contact forces and pressure in a dense crowd: Microscopic and macroscopic models

This paper deals with the estimation of pressure at collisions times during the movement of a dense crowd. Through the non-smooth contact dynamics approach for rigid and deformable solids, proposed by Frémond and his collaborators, the value of pressure and contact forces at collisions points, generated through congestion or panic situation are estimated. Firstly, we propose a second-order microscopic model, in which the crowd is treated as a system of rigid solids. Contact forces are rigorously defined by taking into account multiple simultaneous contacts and the non-overlapping condition between pedestrians. We show that for a dense crowd, percussions can be seen as contact forces. Secondly, in order to overcome the restrictive hypothesis related to the geometric form adapted to model the pedestrian, a continuous equivalent approach is proposed where the crowd is modeled as a deformable solid, the pressure is then defined by the divergence of the stress tensor and calculated according to volume and surface constraints. This approach makes it possible to retain an admissible right-velocity, including both the non-local interactions between non-neighbor pedestrians and the choice of displacement strategy of each pedestrian. Finally, the comparison between the two proposed approaches and some other existing approaches are presented on several illustrative examples to estimate the contact forces between pedestrians.     

A rigid inclusion in the contact problem for elastic plates

A family of problems under consideration describes the contact of elastic plates situated at a given angle to each other and, in the natural condition, touching along a line. The plates are subjected only to bending. The limiting process from the elastic inclusion to the rigid one is studied. It is demonstrated that the limit problems precisely describe the contact of an elastic plate with a rigid beam and the problem of the equilibrium of an elastic plate with a rigid inclusion. The solvability of the problems is established; the boundary conditions holding on the possible contact set are found as well as their precise interpretation.     

A DAE formulation for geared rotor dynamics including frictional contact between the teeth

A DAE approach is presented for geared rotor dynamics simulations with rigid helical evolvent gears. It includes the normal contact force between the teeth as well as tangential components. Given the evolvent tooth flank geometry of gear 1 and gear 2 [1], the contact line and the velocity difference in the contact are found. The requirement of no penetration of the teeth yields a non-holonomic constraint and the contact normal force. The friction caused force and moment are obtained by applying Coulomb's friction model. This approach is used to investigate the dynamics of two ideal rotors with translational DoFs, which are connected by gears to one another. The driving rotor has a given angular speed, while the driven rotates unrestrainedly and is connected to a rotational damper. Because of the periodic friction terms, the solution is periodic. A direct time integration or a harmonic approach can be used for the numerical computation. (© 2015 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

A structure preserving approach to the simulation of non-smooth dynamics

The investigated multibody dynamics involve perfectly elastic, partially elastic and perfectly plastic contacts and a structure preserving approach is used in forward dynamics and optimal control simulations. The applied mechanical integrator is based on a constrained version of the Lagrange-d’Alembert principle and it represents exactly the behaviour of the analytical solution concerning the consistency of momentum maps and symplecticity: it is called symplectic momentum scheme. To guarantee the geometric exactness during the establishing or releasing of contacts, the non-smooth problem is solved including the computation of the contact configuration, time and force, instead of relying on a smooth approximation of the contact problem via a penalty potential. (© 2014 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

All good things come in threes—Three beads learn to swim with lattice Boltzmann and a rigid body solver

We simulate the self-propulsion of devices in a fluid in the regime of low Reynolds numbers. Each device consists of three bodies (spheres or capsules) connected with two damped harmonic springs. Sinusoidal driving forces compress the springs which are resolved within a rigid body physics engine. The latter is consistently coupled to a 3D lattice Boltzmann framework for the fluid dynamics. In simulations of three-sphere devices, we find that the propulsion velocity agrees well with theoretical predictions. In simulations where some or all spheres are replaced by capsules, we find that the asymmetry of the design strongly affects the propelling efficiency.     

Spatial contact problems for rough elastic bodies under elastoplastic deformations of the unevenness

On the basis of /1, 2/, a model is constructed for the contact between a rigid stamp and a rough body taking elastoplastic deformations of the unevenness into account. The contact model for rough bodies with elastic deformations of the unevenness is a special case. A classical approach utilizing boundary integral equations is applied in the mathematical formulation of the contact problem. Under quite general assumptions (for instance, the multiconnectedness of the contact domain desired), the uniqueness and existence of the solution are investigated. A method is developed to determine the contact pressure, the closure of the bodies, and also the contact area which consists of two parts in the general case, a zone of elastoplastic deformation of the unevenness and a zone of their elastic deformation. The efficiency of the method is shown in examples of new contact problems. The solution is represented in a convenient form for analysing the influence of the roughness. This is of considerable value for material testing by a contact method. A fairly complete survey of research on contact problems for rough bodies can be found in /1–4/.     

3D dynamic modeling of powder forming processes via a simple and efficient node-to-surface contact algorithm

In this paper, a simple and efficient contact algorithm is presented for the evaluation of density distribution in three-dimensional dynamic modeling of powder compaction processes. The contact node-to-surface algorithm is employed to impose the contact constraints in large deformation frictional contact, and the contact frictional slip is modified by the Coulomb friction law to simulate the frictional behavior between the rigid punch and the work-piece. The 3D nonlinear contact friction algorithm is employed together with a double-surface cap plasticity model within the framework of large finite element deformation in order to predict the non-uniform relative density distribution during the dynamic simulation of powder die-pressing. The accuracy and robustness of contact algorithm is verified by the impact analysis of two elastic rods, which is compared with the analytical solution. Finally, the performance of computational schemes is illustrated in dynamic modeling of a set of powder components.