The unilateral frictionless contact of a piezoelectric body with a rigid support

The problem of a piezoelectric body in unilateral frictionless contact with a rigid support is considered. The governing equations of this problem are presented. Two variational formulations are proposed and employed in order to decouple the linear problem of the electroelastic equilibrium of the piezoelectric body from the nonlinear contact problem, via a condensation produce. Two different numerical approaches based on finite-element discretizations of the two variational principles are presented in order to show the effectiveness of the proposed formulations. To this end, ad hoc piezoelectric finite elements are used. A comparison between the results obtained by the two different approaches is made. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.