AN IMPROVED FINITE-ELEMENT SCHEME FOR ELASTIC CONTACT PROBLEMS WITH FRICTION

The method proposed by Sachdeva and Ramakrishnan [Int. J. Nwner. Meth. Engng 17, 1257-1271 (1981)] for elastic contact problems with friction is improved by introducing the concept of a contact node pair. The displacements and nodal forces of two contacting nodes are treated as a single variable. The compliance matrix of all the contact node pairs is used rather than the flexibility matrix of each body during iterations. Compatibility of displacements along the contact area is applied in a tangential direction as well as a normal direction for sticking node pairs while Coulomb's friction law is used for sliding nodes. All the above relations are written in terms of node pairs, which results in great savings in computer storage and computation time. Several examples for three different kinds of contact, i.e. receding, advancing and stationary, are given to demonstrate the validity of the present scheme. © 1990.