On the numerical approximation of a frictional contact problem with normal compliance

In this paper, we consider a frictional contact problem with normal compliance. The problem is formulated as a variational inequality, and is shown to possess a unique solution. The finite element approximation is analyzed, with a Cea-like inequality proved. A major difficulty in actually solving the problem is caused by the presence of a non-differentiable functional in the formulation of the problem. Here we discuss the regularization method to overcome the difficulty. A posteriori error estimates are derived.