On wheel–rail contact problem with material properties varying with depth

Numerous laboratory experiments indicate that the use of a layer or a coating material attached to the conventional steel body reduce the magnitude of contact stress. Therefore in this paper we solve numerically the wheel–rail contact problem with friction and wear assuming the existence of a small elastic layer on the rail surface. Material properties of this layer are changing with its depth. The friction between the bodies is governed by Coulomb law. In contact zone Archard's law of wear is assumed. We take special features of this rolling contact problem and use so-called quasistatic approach to solve this contact problem. Finite element method is used as a discretization method. The numerical results including the distribution of normal stress along the contact boundary are provided and discussed. (© 2009 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Analysis of a unilateral contact problem taking into account adhesion and friction

In this paper, we investigate a contact problem between a viscoelastic body and a rigid foundation, when both the effects of the (irreversible) adhesion and of the friction are taken into account. We describe the adhesion phenomenon in terms of a damage surface parameter according to Frémond?s theory, and we model unilateral contact by Signorini conditions, and friction by a nonlocal Coulomb law. All the constraints on the internal variables as well as the contact and the friction conditions are rendered by means of subdifferential operators, whence the highly nonlinear character of the resulting PDE system. Our main result states the existence of a global-in-time solution (to a suitable variational formulation) of the related Cauchy problem. It is proved by an approximation procedure combined with time discretization.     

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.     

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.     

Existence and Uniqueness to a Dynamic Bilateral Frictional Contact Problem in Viscoelasticity

In this paper we examine an evolution problem which describes the dynamic bilateral contact of a viscoelastic body and a foundation. The contact is modeled by a friction multivalued subdifferential boundary condition which incorporates the Coulomb law of friction, the SJK model and the orthotropic friction law. The main result concerns the existence and uniqueness of weak solutions to the hyperbolic variational inequality when the friction coefficient is sufficiently small. The proof is based on a surjectivity result for multivalued operators and a fixed point argument. Research supported in part by the State Committee for Scientific Research of the Republic of Poland (KBN) under Grants no. 2 P03A 003 25 and 4 T07A 027 26.     

A quasistatic viscoplastic contact problem with normal compliance and friction

We consider a quasistatic contact problem between a viscoplasticbody and an obstacle, the so-called foundation. The contactis modelled with normal compliance and the associated versionof Coulomb's law of dry friction. We derive a variational formulationof the problem and, under a smallness assumption on the normalcompliance functions, we establish the existence of a weak solutionto the model. The proof is carried out in several steps. Itis based on a time-discretization method, arguments of monotonicityand compactness, Banach fixed point theorem and Schauder fixedpoint theorem.     

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.     

Analysis of a general dynamic history-dependent variational–hemivariational inequality

This paper is devoted to the study of a general dynamic variational–hemivariational inequality with history-dependent operators. These operators appear in a convex potential and in a locally Lipschitz superpotential. The existence and uniqueness of a solution to the inequality problem is explored through a result on a class of nonlinear evolutionary abstract inclusions involving a nonmonotone multivalued term described by the Clarke generalized gradient. The result presented in this paper is new and general. It can be applied to study various dynamic contact problems. As an illustrative example, we apply the theory on a dynamic frictional viscoelastic contact problem in which the contact is modeled by a nonmonotone Clarke subdifferential boundary condition and the friction is described by a version of the Coulomb law of dry friction with the friction bound depending on the total slip.     

A Linear Complementarity Approach for the Non-convex Seismic Frictional Interaction between Adjacent Structures under Instabilizing Effects*

The paper deals with a numerical treatment of the dynamic hemivariational inequality problem concerning the elastoplastic-fracturing unilateral contact with friction between neighboring structures under second-order geometric effects during earthquakes. The numerical procedure is based on an incremental problem formulation and on a double discretization, in space by the finite element method and in time by the Houbolt method. The generally nonconvex constitutive contact laws are piece-wise linearized, and in each time-step a nonconvex linear complementarity problem is solved with a reduced number of unknowns.     

Quasistatic Thermoviscoelastic Frictional Contact Problem with Damped Response

We analyze a problem which describes the frictional contact between a thermoviscoelastic body and a rigid foundation. The process is assumed to be quasistatic and the contact is modeled by a general normal damped response condition with friction law and heat exchange. Then we present a variational formulation of the problem, which is set in an abstract form as a system of evolution equations for the displacements and temperature. We establish the existence and uniqueness of the weak solution, using general results on evolution equations with monotone operators and fixed point arguments. Finally, we study the continuous dependence of the solution with respect to the initial data and contact conditions.     

A quasistatic contact problem with slip‐dependent coefficient of friction

We consider a mathematical model which describes the bilateral quasistatic contact of a viscoelastic body with a rigid obstacle. The contact is modelled with a modified version of Coulomb's law of dry friction and, moreover, the coefficient of friction is assumed to depend either on the total slip or on the current slip. In the first case, the problem depends upon contact history. We present the classical formulations of the problems, the variational formulations and establish the existence and uniqueness of a weak solution to each of them, when the coefficient of friction is sufficiently small. The proofs are based on classical results for elliptic variational inequalities and fixed point arguments. We also study the dependence of the solutions on the perturbations of the friction coefficient and obtain a uniform convergence result. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

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.     

Existence Results for Quasistatic Contact Problems with Coulomb Friction

We prove the existence of a solution for an elastic frictional, quasistatic, contact problem with a Signorini non-penetration condition and a local Coulomb friction law. The problem is formulated as a time-dependent variational problem and is solved by the aid of an established shifting technique used to obtain increased regularity at the contact surface. The analysis is carried out by the aid of auxiliary problems involving regularized friction terms and a so-called normal compliance penalization technique. \par Accepted 15 May 2000. Online publication 6 October 2000.     

Elastic contact problem with Coulomb friction and normal compliance in Orlicz spaces

A static contact problem for inhomogeneous elastic materials is studied with a non-polynomial growth of the elasticity under the Coulomb’s law of dry friction and the normal compliance condition. We demonstrate the results on existence and uniqueness of a solution to an abstract subdifferential inclusion and a variational–hemivariational inequality in the reflexive Orlicz–Sobolev space which are applied to the static elastic frictional problem.     

Thermoelastic rolling contact problem with temperature dependent friction

The paper is concerned with the numerical solution of a thermoelastic rolling contact problem with wear. The friction between the bodies is governed by Coulomb law. A frictional heat generation and heat transfer across the contact surface as well as Archard's law of wear in contact zone are assumed. The friction coefficient is assumed to depend on temperature. In the paper quasistatic approach to solve this contact problem is employed. This approach is based on the assumption that for the observer moving with the rolling body the displacement of the supporting foundation is independent on time. The original thermoelastic contact problem described by the hyperbolic inequality governing the displacement and the parabolic equation governing the heat flow is transformed into elliptic inequality and elliptic equation, respectively. In order to solve numerically this system we decouple it into mechanical and thermal parts. Finite element method is used as a discretization method. Numerical examples showing the influence of the temperature dependent friction coefficient on the temperature distribution and the length of the contact zone are provided. (© 2008 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

A Dynamic Frictional Contact Problem with Normal Damped Response

We consider a mathematical model which describes the frictional contact between a viscoelastic body and a reactive foundation. The process is assumed to be dynamic and the contact is modeled with a general normal damped response condition and a local friction law. We present a variational formulation of the problem and prove the existence and uniqueness of the weak solution, using results on evolution equations with monotone operators and a fixed point argument. We then introduce and study a fully discrete numerical approximation scheme of the variational problem, in terms of the velocity variable. The numerical scheme has a unique solution. We derive error estimates under additional regularity assumptions on the data and the solution.     

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.     

A mixed variational formulation for a class of contact problems in viscoelasticity

We consider a deformable body in frictionless unilateral contact with a moving rigid obstacle. The material is described by a viscoelastic law with short memory, and the contact is modeled by a Signorini condition with a time-dependent gap. The existence and uniqueness results for a weak formulation based on a Lagrange multipliers approach are provided. Furthermore, we discuss an efficient algorithm approximating the weak solution for the more general case of a two-body contact problem including friction. In order to illustrate the theory we present two numerical examples in 3D.     

A frictional contact problem with normal damped response for elastic-visco-plastic materials

We study an evolution problem which describes the dynamic contact of an elastic-visco-plastic body with a foundation. We model the contact with normal damped response and a local friction law. A damage of the material caused by elastic deformation is taken into account, its evolution is described by an inclusion of parabolic type. We derive variational formulation for the model which is in the form of a system involving the displacement field, the stress field and the damage field. We prove the existence and uniqueness result of the weak solution. The proof is based on arguments of evolution equations with monotone operators, a classical existence and uniqueness result on parabolic inequalities and fixed point.     

A dynamic unilateral contact problem with adhesion and friction in viscoelasticity

The aim of this paper is to study an interaction law coupling recoverable adhesion, friction and unilateral contact between two viscoelastic bodies of Kelvin–Voigt type. A dynamic contact problem with adhesion and nonlocal friction is considered and its variational formulation is written as the coupling between an implicit variational inequality and a parabolic variational inequality describing the evolution of the intensity of adhesion. The existence and approximation of variational solutions are analysed, based on a penalty method, some abstract results and compactness properties. Finally, some numerical examples are presented.