Antiplane shear deformation of piezoelectric bodies in contact with a conductive support

We consider a mathematical model which describes the frictional contact between a piezoelectric body and an electrically conductive support. We model the material’s behavior with an electro-elastic constitutive law; the frictional contact is described with a boundary condition involving Clarke’s generalized gradient and the electrical condition on the contact surface is modelled using the subdifferential of a proper, convex and lower semicontinuous function. We derive a variational formulation of the model and then, using a fixed point theorem for set valued mappings, we prove the existence of at least one weak solution. Finally, the uniqueness of the solution is discussed; the investigation is based on arguments in the theory of variational-hemivariational inequalities.     

Analysis of a history-dependent frictional contact problem

We consider a mathematical model which describes the quasistatic contact between a viscoelastic body and a foundation. The material’s behaviour is modelled with a constitutive law with long memory. The contact is frictional and is modelled with normal compliance and memory term, associated to the Coulomb’s law of dry friction. We present the classical formulation of the problem, list the assumptions on the data and derive a variational formulation of the model. Then we prove the unique weak solvability of the problem. The proof is based on arguments of history-dependent variational inequalities. We also study the dependence of the weak solution with respect to the data and prove a convergence result.     

Numerical analysis of dynamic thermoviscoelastic contact with damage of a rod

We describe and analyse a model for a problem of thermoviscoelasticdynamic contact which allows for the general evolution of thematerial damage. The effects on the mechanical properties ofthe material due to crack expansion are described by a damagefield, which measures the decrease in the load-bearing capacityof the material. The damage process is assumed to be reversibleand the microcracks which develop as a result of tension orcompression may grow or disappear. The geometric setting isthat of a 1D rod which may contact a deformable obstacle. Thecontact is modelled by the normal compliance condition and thestress–strain constitutive equation is of Kelvin–Voigttype. The model consists of a coupled system of energy–elasticityequations together with a non-linear parabolic inclusion forthe damage field. The existence of a local weak solution isestablished using penalization, a finite element algorithm forthe solution is constructed and analysed and the results ofnumerical simulations based on this algorithm are presented.The simulations illustrate how the size of the normal compliancecoefficients, the damage rate coefficients and the applied forceaffect the character of the evolution of the damage. In particular,cycles of bonding and debonding can occur.     

Variational and numerical analysis of a quasistatic viscoelastic problem with normal compliance,friction and damage

We consider a model for quasistatic frictional contact between a viscoelastic body and a foundation. The material constitutive relation is assumed to be nonlinear. The mechanical damage of the material, caused by excessive stress or strain, is described by the damage function, the evolution of which is determined by a parabolic inclusion. The contact is modeled with the normal compliance condition and the associated version of Coulomb's law of dry friction. We derive a variational formulation for the problem and prove the existence of its unique weak solution. We then study a fully discrete scheme for the numerical solutions of the problem and obtain error estimates on the approximate solutions.     

A dynamic viscoelastic contact problem with normal compliance,finite penetration and nonmonotone slip rate dependent friction

We consider a mathematical model which describes the dynamic evolution of a viscoelastic body in frictional contact with an obstacle. The contact is modelled with normal compliance and unilateral constraint, associated to a rate slip-dependent version of Coulomb’s law of dry friction. In order to approximate the contact conditions, we consider a regularized problem wherein the contact is modelled by a standard normal compliance condition without finite penetrations. For each problem, we derive a variational formulation and an existence result of the weak solution of the regularized problem is obtained. Next, we prove the convergence of the weak solution of the regularized problem to the weak solution of the initial nonregularized problem. Then, we introduce a fully discrete approximation of the variational problem based on a finite element method and on a second order time integration scheme. The solution of the resulting nonsmooth and nonconvex frictional contact problems is presented, based on approximation by a sequence of nonsmooth convex programming problems. Finally, some numerical simulations are provided in order to illustrate both the behaviour of the solution related to the frictional contact conditions and the convergence result.     

A frictional contact problem with wear and damage for electro-viscoelastic materials

We consider a quasistatic contact problem for an electro-viscoelastic body. The contact is frictional and bilateral with a moving rigid foundation which results in the wear of the contacting surface. The damage of the material caused by elastic deformation is taken into account, its evolution is described by an inclusion of parabolic type. We present a weak formulation for the model and establish existence and uniqueness results. The proofs are based on classical results for elliptic variational inequalities, parabolic inequalities and fixed point arguments.     

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.     

Subharmonic Solutions with Prescribed Minimal Period of a Forced Pendulum Equation with Impulses

We consider a mathematical model which describes the sliding frictional contact between a viscoplastic body and an obstacle, the so-called foundation. The process is quasistatic, the material’s behavior is described with a viscoplastic constitutive law with internal state variable and the contact is modelled with normal compliance and unilateral constraint. The wear of the contact surfaces is taken into account, and is modelled with a version of Archard’s law. We derive a mixed variational formulation of the problem which involve implicit history-dependent operators. Then, we prove the unique weak solvability of the contact model. The proof is based on a fixed point argument proved in Sofonea et al. (Commun. Pure Appl. Anal. 7:645–658, 2008), combined with a recent abstract existence and uniqueness result for mixed variational problems, obtained in Sofonea and Matei (J. Glob. Optim. 61:591–614, 2014).     

Adhesive contact problem for viscoplastic materials

We examine a mathematical model that describes a quasistatic adhesive contact between a viscoplastic body and deformable foundation. The material’s behaviour is described by the rate-type constitutive law which involves functions with a non-polynomial growth. The contact is modelled by the normal compliance condition with limited penetration and adhesion, a subdifferential friction condition also depending on adhesion, and the evolution of bonding field is governed by an ordinary differential equation. We present the variational formulation of this problem which is a system of an almost history-dependent variational–hemivariational inequality for the displacement field and an ordinary differential equation for the bonding field. The results on existence and uniqueness of solution to an abstract almost history-dependent inclusion and variational–hemivariational inequality in the reflexive Orlicz–Sobolev space are proved and applied to the adhesive contact problem.     

Quasistatic frictional thermo‐piezoelectric contact problem

We consider here a mathematical model describing the bilateral frictional contact between a thermo‐piezoelectric body and a thermally conductive foundation. We model the behavior of the material with a linear thermo‐electro‐elastic constitutive law. The process is assumed to be quasistatic and the contact is modeled with a nonlocal version of Coulomb's dry friction law, in which the frictional heat generated in the process, is taken into account. We drive a variational formulation of the problem and establish the existence of its weak solution.     

Analysis of two frictional viscoplastic contact problems with damage

In this work we study two quasistatic frictional contact problems arising in viscoplasticity including the mechanical damage of the material, caused by excessive stress or strain and modelled by an inclusion of parabolic type. The variational formulation is provided for both problems and the existence of a unique solution is proved for each of them. Then a fully discrete scheme is introduced using the finite element method to approximate the spatial domain and the Euler scheme to discretize the time derivatives. Error estimates are derived and, under suitable regularity assumptions, the linear convergence of the algorithm is deduced. Finally, some numerical examples are presented to show the performance of the method.     

Dynamic thermoviscoelastic problem with friction and damage

In this paper we present a model of dynamic frictional contact between a thermoviscoelastic body and a foundation. The thermoviscoelastic constitutive law includes a temperature effect described by the parabolic equation with the subdifferential boundary condition and a damage effect described by the parabolic inclusion with the homogeneous Neumann boundary condition. Contact is modeled with bilateral condition and is associated to a subdifferential frictional law. The variational formulation of the problem leads to a system of hyperbolic hemivariational inequality for the displacement, parabolic hemivariational inequality for the temperature and parabolic variational inequality for the damage. The existence of a unique weak solution is proved by using recent results from the theory of hemivariational inequalities, variational inequalities, and a fixed point argument.     

The solvability of a coupled thermoviscoelastic contact problem with small Coulomb friction and linearized growth of frictional heat

A coupled thermoviscoelastic frictional contact problem is investigated. The contact is modelled by the Signorini condition for the displacement velocities and the friction by the Coulomb law. The heat generated by friction is described by a non‐linear boundary condition with at most linear growth. The weak formulation of the problem consists of a variational inequality for the elasticity part and a variational equation for the heat conduction part. In order to prove the existence of a solution to this problem we first use an approximation of the Signorini condition by the penalty method. The existence of a solution for the approximate problem is shown using the fixed‐point theorem of Schauder. This theorem is applied to the composition of the solution operator for the contact problem with given temperature field and the solution operator for the heat equation problem with known displacement field. To obtain this proof, the unique solvability of both problems is necessary. Due to this reason it is necessary to introduce the penalty method. While the penalized contact problem has a unique solution, this is not clear for the original contact problem. The solvability of the original frictional contact problem is verified by an investigation of the limit for vanishing penalty parameter. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An electro-viscoelastic frictional contact problem with damage

We consider a quasistatic frictional contact problem between a piezoelectric body and a foundation. The contact is modeled with normal compliance and friction is modeled with a general version of Coulomb's law of dry friction; the process is quasistatic and the material's behavior is described by an electro-viscoelastic constitutive law with damage. We derive a variational formulation for the model which is in the form of a system involving the displacement field, the electric potential field, and the damage field. Then we provide the existence of a unique weak solution to the model. The proof is based on arguments of evolutionary variational inequalities and fixed point.     

Variational analysis of fully coupled electro‐elastic frictional contact problems

We consider a mathematical model which describes the static frictional contact between a piezoelectric body and a foundation. The material behavior is described with a nonlinear electro‐elastic constitutive law. The novelty of the model consists in the fact that the foundation is assumed to be electrically conductive and both the frictional contact and the conductivity on the contact surface are described with subdifferential boundary conditions which involve a fully coupling between the mechanical and electrical variables. We derive a variational formulation of the problem which is in the form of a system coupling two hemivariational inequalities for the displacement and the electric potential fields, respectively. Then we prove the existence of a weak solution to the model and, under additional assumptions, its uniqueness. The proofs are based on recent results for inclusions of subdifferential type in Sobolev spaces (© 2010 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Analysis of a dynamic contact problem for electro-viscoelastic cylinders

We consider a mathematical model which describes the antiplane shear deformations of a piezoelectric cylinder in frictional contact with a foundation. The process is mechanically dynamic and electrically static, the material behavior is described with a linearly electro-viscoelastic constitutive law, the contact is frictional and the foundation is assumed to be electrically conductive. Both the friction and the electrical conductivity condition on the contact surface are described with subdifferential boundary conditions. We derive a variational formulation of the problem which is of the form of a system coupling a second order hemivariational inequality for the displacement field with a time-dependent hemivariational inequality for the electric potential field. Then we prove the existence of a unique weak solution to the model. The proof is based on abstract results for second order evolutionary inclusions in Banach spaces. Finally, we present concrete examples of friction laws and electrical conductivity conditions for which our result is valid.     

Thermomechanical behaviour of a damageable beam in contact with two stops

A model for the thermomechanical behaviour of a beam which allows for the general evolution of material damage is presented and investigated. One end of the beam is fixed while the other is constrained to move between two stops. The contact of the free tip with the stops is modelled by the normal compliance condition. The thermal interaction between the stops and the free tip is described by a heat exchange condition where the heat transfer coefficient is a general function of the gaps between the tip and the stops. The effects on the mechanical properties of the material due to crack expansion are described by a damage field, which measures the decrease in the load-bearing capacity of the material. The damage evolves as a constrained diffusion process in which the microcracks that develop may grow or disappear. The mathematical model consists of a coupled system of energy--elasticity equations together with a nonlinear parabolic inclusion for the damage field. The existence of a local solution is established using truncation, penalization, and a priori estimates.     

Viscoplasticity with frictional contact and rapid growth

We consider a problem in the inelastic deformation theory with a quasistatic deformation process of the gradient‐monotone type. We assume that the body has contact with a rigid foundation: the body moves on the foundation with friction. The frictional contact is modelled by a velocity‐dependent dissipation functional. This makes an evolution problem with two nonlinear monotone operators. We consider the gradient‐monotone inelastic constitutive function with a rapid growth at infinity. This leads us to a nonreflexive Orlicz space as an operational base. The frictional dissipation potential brings about a minimalization problem in this nonreflexive Orlicz space. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Modeling of large deformation frictional contact in powder compaction processes

In this paper, the computational aspects of large deformation frictional contact are presented in powder forming processes. The influence of powder–tool friction on the mechanical properties of the final product is investigated in pressing metal powders. A general formulation of continuum model is developed for frictional contact and the computational algorithm is presented for analyzing the phenomena. It is particularly concerned with the numerical modeling of frictional contact between a rigid tool and a deformable material. The finite element approach adopted is characterized by the use of penalty approach in which a plasticity theory of friction is incorporated to simulate sliding resistance at the powder–tool interface. The constitutive relations for friction are derived from a Coulomb friction law. The frictional contact formulation is performed within the framework of large FE deformation in order to predict the non-uniform relative density distribution during large deformation of powder die pressing. A double-surface cap plasticity model is employed together with the nonlinear contact friction behavior in numerical simulation of powder material. Finally, the numerical schemes are examined for efficiency and accuracy in modeling of several powder compaction processes.     

Analysis and numerical solution of a piezoelectric frictional contact problem

We consider a mathematical model which describes the frictional contact between an electro-elastic–visco-plastic body and a conductive foundation. The contact is modelled with normal compliance and a version of Coulomb’s law of dry friction, in which the stiffness and the friction coefficients depend on the electric potential. We derive a variational formulation of the problem and we prove an existence and uniqueness result. The proof is based on a recent existence and uniqueness result on history-dependent quasivariational inequalities obtained in [15]. Then we introduce a fully discrete scheme for solving the problem and, under certain solution regularity assumptions, we derive an optimal order error estimate. Finally, we present some numerical results in the study of a two-dimensional test problem which describes the process of contact in a microelectromechanical switch.