Minimax principles for elliptic mixed hemivariational–variational inequalities

In this paper, minimax principles are explored for elliptic mixed hemivariational–variational inequalities. Under certain conditions, a saddle-point formulation is shown to be equivalent to a mixed hemivariational–variational inequality. While the minimax principle is of independent interest, it is employed in this paper to provide an elementary proof of the solution existence of the mixed hemivariational–variational inequality. Theoretical results are illustrated in the applications of two contact problems.     

On a class of nonlinear variational–hemivariational inequalities

A three critical points theorem for nondifferentiable functions is pointed out and an existence result of multiple solutions for a Neumann elliptic variational–hemivariational inequality involving the p-laplacian is established. As an application, a Neumann problem for elliptic equations with discontinuous nonlinearities is studied.     

Well-posedness of constrained evolutionary differential variational–hemivariational inequalities with applications

A system of a first order history-dependent evolutionary variational– hemivariational inequality with unilateral constraints coupled with a nonlinear ordinary differential equation in a Banach space is studied. Based on a fixed point theorem for history dependent operators, results on the well-posedness of the system are proved. Existence, uniqueness, continuous dependence of the solution on the data, and the solution regularity are established. Two applications of dynamic problems from contact mechanics illustrate the abstract results. First application is a unilateral viscoplastic frictionless contact problem which leads to a hemivariational inequality for the velocity field, and the second one deals with a viscoelastic frictional contact problem which is described by a variational inequality.     

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.     

Contact models leading to variational–hemivariational inequalities

A frictional contact model, under the small deformations hypothesis, for static processes is considered. We model the behavior of the material by a constitutive law using the subdifferential of a proper, convex and lower semicontinuous function. The contact is described with a boundary condition involving Clarke?s generalized gradient. Our study focuses on the weak solvability of the model. Based on a fixed point theorem for set-valued mappings, we prove the existence of at least one weak solution. The uniqueness, the boundedness and the stability of the weak solution are also discussed; the investigation is based on arguments in the theory of variational–hemivariational inequalities. Finally, we present several examples of constitutive laws and friction laws for which our theoretical results are valid.     

Existence and extremal solutions of parabolic variational–hemivariational inequalities

We consider quasilinear parabolic variational–hemivariational inequalities in a cylindrical domain $Q=\Omega \times (0,\tau )$ of the form $$\begin{aligned} u\in K:\ \langle u_t+Au, v-u\rangle +\int _Q j^o(x,t, u;v-u)\,dxdt\ge 0,\ \ \forall \ v\in K, \end{aligned}$$ where $K\subset X_0=L^p(0,\tau ;W_0^{1,p}(\Omega ))$ is some closed and convex subset, $A$ is a time-dependent quasilinear elliptic operator, and $s\mapsto j(\cdot ,\cdot ,s)$ is assumed to be locally Lipschitz with $(s,r)\mapsto j^o(x,t, s;r)$ denoting its generalized directional derivative at $s$ in the direction $r$ . The main goal of this paper is threefold: first, an existence and comparison principle is proved; second, the existence of extremal solutions within some sector of appropriately defined sub-supersolutions is shown; third, the equivalence of the above parabolic variational–hemivariational inequality with an associated multi-valued parabolic variational inequality of the form $$\begin{aligned} u\in K:\ \langle u_t+Au, v-u\rangle +\int _Q \eta \, (v-u)\,dxdt\ge 0,\ \ \forall \ v\in K \end{aligned}$$ with $\eta (x,t)\in \partial j(x,t, u(x,t))$ is established, where $s\mapsto \partial j(x,t, s)$ denotes Clarke’s generalized gradient of the locally Lipschitz function $s\mapsto j(\cdot ,\cdot ,s)$ .     

History-dependent variational–hemivariational inequalities in contact mechanics

We consider an abstract class of variational–hemivariational inequalities which arise in the study of a large number of mathematical models of contact. The novelty consists in the structure of the inequalities which involve two history-dependent operators and two nondifferentiable functionals, a convex and a nonconvex one. For these inequalities we provide an existence and uniqueness result of the solution. The proof is based on arguments of surjectivity for pseudomonotone operators and fixed point. Then, we consider a viscoelastic problem in which the contact is frictionless and is modeled with a new boundary condition which describes both the instantaneous and the memory effects of the foundation. We prove that this problem leads to a history-dependent variational–hemivariational inequality in which the unknown is the displacement field. We apply our abstract result in order to prove the unique weak solvability of this viscoelastic contact problem.     

A novel approach to Hölder continuity of a class of parametric variational–hemivariational inequalities

In this paper, we first recall a class of parametric variational–hemivariational inequalities (PVHIs) introduced in Jiang et al. (2020). Then, based on the properties of the Clarke generalized gradient, we establish the Hölder continuity of the solution mapping for PVHIs in terms of regularized gap functions under some assumptions imposed on the data of PVHIs. Finally, an example is given to illustrate our main results.     

Decay mild solutions of Hilfer fractional differential variational–hemivariational inequalities

The primary objective of this paper is to explore a decay mild solution governed by a class of dynamical systems, called Hilfer fractional differential variational–hemivariational inequality (HFDVHVI, for short), which is composed of a Hilfer fractional evolution differential inclusion and a variational–hemivariational inequality involving two history-dependent operators in the framework of spaces. Our first aim is to investigate the solvability of the mild solutions to (HFDVHVI) by means of fixed point principle. The second step of the paper is to study the existence of decay mild solutions to (HFDVHVI) via giving expression for the Mittag-Leffler function and the Wright function.     

Existence results for evolutionary inclusions and variational–hemivariational inequalities

We consider an abstract first-order evolutionary inclusion in a reflexive Banach space. The inclusion contains the sum of L-pseudomonotone operator and a maximal monotone operator. We provide an existence theorem which is a generalization of former results known in the literature. Next, we apply our result to the case of nonlinear variational–hemivariational inequalities considered in the setting of an evolution triple of spaces. We specify the multivalued operators in the problem and obtain existence results for several classes of variational–hemivariational inequality problems. Finally, we illustrate our existence result and treat a class of quasilinear parabolic problems under nonmonotone and multivalued flux boundary conditions.     

Differential variational–hemivariational inequalities with application to contact mechanics

In this paper we study a dynamical system which consists of the Cauchy problem for a nonlinear evolution equation of first order coupled with a nonlinear time-dependent variational–hemivariational inequality with constraint in Banach spaces. The evolution equation is considered in the framework of evolution triple of spaces, and the inequality which involves both the convex and nonconvex potentials. We prove existence of solution by the Kakutani–Ky Fan fixed point theorem combined with the Minty formulation and the theory of hemivariational inequalities. We illustrate our findings by examining a nonlinear quasistatic elastic frictional contact problem for which we provide a result on existence of weak solution.     

A family of predictor–corrector schemes for a class of variational inequalities

This work is concerned with an abstract problem in the form of a variational inequality, or equivalently a minimization problem involving a non-differential functional. The problem is inspired by a formulation of the initial–boundary value problem of elastoplasticity. The objective of this work is to revisit the predictor–corrector algorithms that are commonly used in computational applications, and to establish conditions under which these are convergent or, at least, under which they lead to decreasing sequences of the functional for the problem. The focus is on the predictor step, given that the corrector step by definition leads to a decrease in the functional. The predictor step may be formulated as a minimization problem. Attention is given to the tangent predictor, a line search approach, the method of steepest descent, and a Newton-like method. These are all shown to lead to decreasing sequences.     

On convergence of numerical methods for variational–hemivariational inequalities under minimal solution regularity

Hemivariational inequalities have been successfully employed for mathematical and numerical studies of application problems involving nonsmooth, nonmonotone and multivalued relations. In recent years, error estimates have been derived for numerical solutions of hemivariational inequalities under additional solution regularity assumptions. Since the solution regularity properties have not been rigorously proved for hemivariational inequalities, it is important to explore the convergence of numerical solutions of hemivariational inequalities without assuming additional solution regularity. In this paper, we present a general convergence result enhancing existing results in the literature.     

Gap functions and global error bounds for differential variational–hemivariational inequalities

This paper concerns with the study of a differential variational–hemivariational inequality (DVHVI, for short) in infinite-dimensional Banach spaces. We first introduce the new concept of gap functions for the variational control system of (DVHVI). Then, we consider two kinds of gap functions which are regularized gap function and Moreau–Yosida regularized gap function, respectively, and examine the relevant properties of the gap functions. Moreover, two global error bounds which depend implicitly on the regularized gap function and the Moreau–Yosida regularized gap function, accordingly, are obtained. Finally, in order to illustrate the applicability of the theoretical results, we investigate a coupled dynamic system which is formulated by a nonlinear reaction–diffusion equation described by a time-dependent nonsmooth semipermeability problem.     

A class of hemivariational inequalities for nonstationary Navier–Stokes equations

This paper is devoted to the study of a class of hemivariational inequalities for the time-dependent Navier–Stokes equations, including both boundary hemivariational inequalities and domain hemivariational inequalities. The hemivariational inequalities are analyzed in the framework of an abstract hemivariational inequality. Solution existence for the abstract hemivariational inequality is explored through a limiting procedure for a temporally semi-discrete scheme based on the backward Euler difference of the time derivative, known as the Rothe method. It is shown that solutions of the Rothe scheme exist, they contain a weakly convergent subsequence as the time step-size approaches zero, and any weak limit of the solution sequence is a solution of the abstract hemivariational inequality. It is further shown that under certain conditions, a solution of the abstract hemivariational inequality is unique and the solution of the abstract hemivariational inequality depends continuously on the problem data. The results on the abstract hemivariational inequality are applied to hemivariational inequalities associated with the time-dependent Navier–Stokes equations.     

Variational inequalities for a system of elliptic–parabolic equations

We create a general framework for mathematical study of variational inequalities for a system of elliptic–parabolic equations. In this paper, we establish a solvability theorem concerning the existence of solutions for the vector-valued elliptic–parabolic variational inequality with time-dependent constraint. Moreover, we give some applications of the system, for example, time-dependent boundary obstacle problem and time-dependent interior obstacle problem.     

A steepest-descent Krasnosel’skii–Mann algorithm for a class of variational inequalities in Banach spaces

In this paper, in order to solve a variational inequality problem over the fixed point set of a nonexpansive mapping on uniformly smooth or reflexive and strictly convex Banach spaces with a uniformly Gâteaux differentiable norm, we investigate an explicit iteration method, based on the steepest-descent and Krasnosel’skii–Mann algorithms. We also show that some modifications of the last and Halpern-type algorithms are special cases of our result.