Computational Contact Mechanics

This paper describes modern techniques used to solve contact problems within Computational Mechanics. On the basis of a continuum description of contact, the mathematical structure of the contact formulation for finite element methods is derived. Emphasis is also placed on the constitutive behavior at the contact interface for normal and tangential (frictional) contact. Furthermore, different discretization schemes currently applied to solve engineering problems are formulated for small and finite strain problems. These include isoparametric interpolations, node-to-segment discretizations and also mortar and Nitsche techniques. Furthermore, several algorithms related to spatial contact search and fulfillment of the inequality constraints at the contact interface are discussed. Here, especially the penalty and Lagrange multiplier schemes are considered and also SQP- and linear-programming methods are reviewed. Keywords: contact mechanics; friction; penalty method; Lagrange multiplier method; contact algorithms; finite element method; finite deformations; discretization methods