Contact problems with friction for hemitropic solids: boundary variational inequality approach

We study the interior and exterior contact problems for hemitropic elastic solids. We treat the cases when the friction effects, described by Tresca friction (given friction model), are taken into consideration either on some part of the boundary of the body or on the whole boundary. We equivalently reduce these problems to a boundary variational inequality with the help of the Steklov–Poincaré type operator. Based on our boundary variational inequality approach we prove existence and uniqueness theorems for weak solutions. We prove that the solutions continuously depend on the data of the original problem and on the friction coefficient. For the interior problem, necessary and sufficient conditions of solvability are established when friction is taken into consideration on the whole boundary.     

A scalable TFETI algorithm for two-dimensional multibody contact problems with friction

A Total FETI (TFETI) based domain decomposition algorithm with preconditioning by a natural coarse grid of rigid body motions is adapted to the solution of two-dimensional multibody contact problems of elasticity with the Coulomb friction and proved to be scalable for the Tresca friction. The algorithm finds an approximate solution at the cost asymptotically proportional to the number of variables provided the ratio of the decomposition parameter and the discretization parameter is bounded. The analysis is based on the classical results by Farhat, Mandel, and Roux on scalability of FETI with a natural coarse grid for linear problems and on our development of optimal quadratic programming algorithms for bound and equality constrained problems. The algorithm preserves parallel scalability of the classical FETI method. Both theoretical results and numerical experiments indicate a high efficiency of our algorithm. In addition, its performance is illustrated on analysis of the yielding clamp connection with the Coulomb friction.     

Evolutional contact with Coulomb's friction on a periodic microstructure

We consider the elasticity problem in a heterogeneous domain with an ε-periodic micro-structure, ε ≪ 1, including a multiple micro-contact in a simply connected matrix domain with inclusions completely surrounded by cracks, which do not connect the boundary, or a textile-like material. The contact is described by the Signorini and Coulomb-friction contact conditions. In the case of the Coulomb friction, the dissipative functional is state dependent, like in [2]. A time discretization scheme from [2] reduces the contact problem to the Tresca one (with prescribed frictional traction or state independent dissipation) on each time-increment. We further look for the spatial homogenization. The limiting energy and the dissipation term in the stability condition were obtained for the contact with Tresca's friction law in [4] for closed cracks and can be extended to textile-like materials. Using these results and the concept of energetic solutions for evolutional quasi-variational problems from [2], for a uniform time-step partition, the existence can be proved for the solution of the continuous problem and a subsequence of incremental solutions weakly converging to the continuous one uniformly in time. Furthermore, the irreversible frictional displacements at micro-level lead to a kind of an evolutional plastic behavior of the homogenized medium. (© 2013 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

The element‐free Galerkin method for a quasistatic contact problem with the Tresca friction in elastic materials

This paper is proposed for the error estimates of the element‐free Galerkin method for a quasistatic contact problem with the Tresca friction. The penalty method is used to impose the clamped boundary conditions. The duality algorithm is also given to deal with the non‐differentiable term in the quasistatic contact problem with the Tresca friction. The error estimates indicate that the convergence order is dependent on the nodal spacing, the time step, the largest degree of basis functions in the moving least‐squares approximation, and the penalty factor. Numerical examples demonstrate the effectiveness of the element‐free Galerkin method and verify the theoretical analysis.     

Non-isothermal lubrication problem with Tresca fluid–solid interface law. Part I

We consider the stationary equations for a non-isothermal Newtonian and incompressible fluids, in a three-dimensional bounded domain. The problem is governed by a coupled system involving a balance of linear momentum and the heat energy with Tresca free boundary friction conditions. Existence, uniqueness and regularity of the weak solution to this coupled problem are proved.     

One- and two-level Schwarz methods for variational inequalities of the second kind and their application to frictional contact

We present and analyze subspace correction methods for the solution of variational inequalities of the second kind and apply these theoretical results to non smooth contact problems in linear elasticity with Tresca and non-local Coulomb friction. We introduce these methods in a reflexive Banach space, prove that they are globally convergent and give error estimates. In the context of finite element discretizations, where our methods turn out to be one- and two-level Schwarz methods, we specify their convergence rate and its dependence on the discretization parameters and conclude that our methods converge optimally. Transferring this results to frictional contact problems, we thus can overcome the mesh dependence of some fixed-point schemes which are commonly employed for contact problems with Coulomb friction.     

Approximation and numerical realization of 3D contact problems with given friction and a coefficient of friction depending on the solution

The paper presents the analysis, approximation and numerical realization of 3D contact problems for an elastic body unilaterally supported by a rigid half space taking into account friction on the common surface. Friction obeys the simplest Tresca model (a slip bound is given a priori) but with a coefficient of friction $ \mathcal{F} $ \mathcal{F} which depends on a solution. It is shown that a solution exists for a large class of $ \mathcal{F} $ \mathcal{F} and is unique provided that $ \mathcal{F} $ \mathcal{F} is Lipschitz continuous with a sufficiently small modulus of the Lipschitz continuity. The problem is discretized by finite elements, and convergence of discrete solutions is established. Finally, methods for numerical realization are described and several model examples illustrate the efficiency of the proposed approach.     

On Abstract Variational Inequalities in Viscoplasticity with Frictional Contact

In this paper, we study quasistatic abstract variational inequalities with time-dependent constraints. We prove existence results and present an approximation method valid for nonsmooth constraints. Then, we apply our results to the approximation of the quasistatic evolution of an elastic body in bilateral contact with a rigid foundation. The contact involves viscous friction of the Tresca or Coulomb type. We prove existence results for approximate problems and give a full asymptotic analysis, proving strong or weak convergence results. Our work is motivated by the numerical study in the paper [Delost, M.: Quasistatic Problem with Frictional Contact: Comparison between Numerical Methods and Asymptotic Analysis Related to Semi Discrete and Fully Discrete Approximations. University of Nice, Nice (2007, to appear)] and explains the choice of the approximation made in it.     

A Decomposition Method for a Unilateral Contact Problem with Tresca Friction Arising in Electro-elastostatics

This article is concerned with the numerical modeling of unilateral contact problems in an electro-elastic material with Tresca friction law and electrical conductivity condition. First, we prove the existence and uniqueness of the weak solution of the model. Rather than deriving a solution method for the full coupled problem, we present and study a successive iterative (decomposition) method. The idea is to solve successively a displacement subproblem and an electric potential subproblem in block Gauss-Seidel fashion. The displacement subproblem leads to a constraint non-differentiable (convex) minimization problem for which we propose an augmented Lagrangian algorithm. The electric potential unknown is computed explicitly using the Riesz's representation theorem. The convergence of the iterative decomposition method is proved. Some numerical experiments are carried out to illustrate the performances of the proposed algorithm.     

Shape and topology optimization of contact problems by level set methods

This paper deals with the numerical solution of a topology and shape optimization problems of an elastic body in unilateral contact with a rigid foundation. The contact problem with the prescribed friction is considered. The structural optimization problem consists in finding such shape of the boundary of the domain occupied by the body that the normal contact stress along the contact boundary of the body is minimized. In the paper shape as well as topological derivatives formulae of the cost functional are provided using material derivative and asymptotic expansion methods, respectively. These derivatives are employed to formulate necessary optimality condition for simultaneous shape and topology optimization. Level set based numerical algorithm for the solution of the shape optimization problem is proposed. Level set method is used to describe the position of the boundary of the body and its evolution on a fixed mesh. This evolution is governed by Hamilton – Jacobi equation. The speed vector field driving the propagation of the boundary of the body is given by the shape derivative of a cost functional with respect to the free boundary. Numerical examples are provided. (© 2008 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Fixed point strategies for elastostatic frictional contact problems

Several fixed point strategies and Uzawa algorithms (for classical and augmented Lagrangian formulations) are presented to solve the unilateral contact problem with Coulomb friction. These methods are analysed, without introducing any regularization, and a theoretical comparison is performed. Thanks to a formalism coming from convex analysis, some new fixed point strategies are presented and compared with known methods. The analysis is first performed on continuous Tresca problem and then on the finite dimensional Coulomb problem derived from an arbitrary finite element method. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

On the formulation and investigation of a spatial contact problem for elastic bodies under mixed friction conditions

A spatial contact problem is formulated and investgated for rough elastic bodies which touch each other under mixed friction conditions: the elastic bodies are separated in one part of the contact domain by a layer of viscous incompressible liquid (lubricant), while in the other they are in direct contact (such conditions are characteristic for roller bearings, gear transmissions, etc.). The problem is reduced to a system of nonlinear integro-differential and integral equations and inequalities in the contact domain, part of the external boundary, and a number of inner boundaries that are unknown in advance, but separate the lubricated and unlubricated zones. Special cases are problems of dry and completely lubricated contact. A formulation is given for the problem for the case when the materials of the bodies are identical. The problem of mixed friction is considered in strongly drawn out contact. Sections of the contact domain in which the interaction between the bodies is direct or by means of the lubrication layer are investigated using asymptotic methods.     

A penalty approximation for a unilateral contact problem in non-linear elasticity

Using Ball's approach to non-linear elasticity, and in particular his concept of polyconvexity, we treat a unilateral three-dimensional contact problem for a hyperelastic body under volume and surface forces. Here the unilateral constraint is described by a sublinear function which can model the contact with a rigid convex cone. We obtain a solution to this generally non-convex, semicoercive Signorinin problem as a limit of solutions of related energy minimization problems involving friction normal to the contact surface where the friction coefficient goes to infinity. Thus we extend an approximation result of Duvaut and Lions for linear-elastic unilateral contact problems to finite deformations and to a class of non-linear elastic materials including the material models of Ogden and of Mooney-Rivlin for rubberlike materials. Moreover, the underlying penalty method is shown to be exact, that is a sufficiently large friction coefficient in the auxiliary energy minimization problems suffices to produce a solution of the original unilateral problem, provided a Lagrange multiplier to the unilateral constraint exists.     

The eigenmode expansion method for oscillations of an elastic body with internal and external friction

A method is proposed for solving dynamical problems for a viscoelastic body (the Kelvin-Voigt model) in a massless viscous medium. Interaction with the external medium produces on the boundary of the body stresses proportional to the rate of displacement. The model of external friction is that used for modelling dynamical processes in elastic media filling an infinite domain [1, 2]. The implementation of numerical methods of solution requires an equivalent restatement of the problem in a finite domain, using external viscous friction to allow for the radiation of energy at infinity.     

On a free boundary problem for the Reynolds equation derived from the Stokes system with Tresca boundary conditions

The asymptotic behaviour of a Stokes flow with Tresca free boundary friction conditions when one dimension of the fluid domain tends to zero is studied. A specific Reynolds equation associated with variational inequalities is obtained and uniqueness is proved.     

Implementation of the fixed point method in contact problems with Coulomb friction based on a dual splitting type technique

The paper deals with the numerical solution of the quasi-variational inequality describing the equilibrium of an elastic body in contact with a rigid foundation under Coulomb friction. After a discretization of the problem by mixed finite elements, the duality approach is exploited to reduce the problem to a sequence of quadratic programming problems with box constraints, so that efficient recently proposed algorithms may be applied. A new variant of this method is presented. It combines fixed point with block Gauss–Seidel iterations. The method may be also considered as a new implementation of fixed point iterations for a sequence of problems with given friction. Results of numerical experiments are given showing that the resulting algorithm may be much faster than the original fixed point method and its efficiency is comparable with the solution of frictionless contact problems.     

A Domain Decomposition Method for Frictional Contact Problem

The bilateral or unilateral contact problem with Coulomb friction between two elastic bodies is considered [1]. An algorithm is introduced to solve the resulting finite element system by a non‐overlapping domain decomposition method. The global problem is transformed to a smaller problem on the contact surface. The solution is obtained by using a successive approximation method, in each step of this algorithm we solve two intermediate problems the first with prescribed tangential pressure and the second with prescribed normal pressure.     

DD‐type Domain Decomposition Method for Frictional Contact Problem

The bilateral or unilateral contact problem with Coulomb friction between two elastic bodies is considered [1]. An algorithm is introduced to solve the resulting finite element system by a non‐overlapping domain decomposition method. The global problem is transformed to a smaller problem on the contact surface. The solution is obtained by using a successive approximation method, in each step of this algorithm we solve two intermediate problems the first with prescribed tangential pressure and the second with prescribed normal pressure.     

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.