A comparison of solvers for linear complementarity problems arising from large-scale masonry structures

We compare the numerical performance of several methods for solving the discrete contact problem arising from the finite element discretisation of elastic systems with numerous contact points. The problem is formulated as a variational inequality and discretised using piecewise quadratic finite elements on a triangulation of the domain. At the discrete level, the variational inequality is reformulated as a classical linear complementarity system. We compare several state-of-art algorithms that have been advocated for such problems. Computational tests illustrate the use of these methods for a large collection of elastic bodies, such as a simplified bidimensional wall made of bricks or stone blocks, deformed under volume and surface forces. This work was supported by the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council of Great Britain under grant GR/S35101, and the first author was supported by a fellowship from the Royal Society of Edinburgh.