A contact smoothing method for arbitrary surface meshes using Nagata patches.pdf

Available online at ScienceDirect Comput. Methods Appl. Mech. Engrg. 299 (2016) 283–315 /locate/cma A contact smoothing method for arbitrary surface meshes using Nagata patches D.M. Netoa,?, M.C. Oliveiraa, L.F. Menezesa, J.L. Alvesb a CEMUC, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Coimbra, Polo II, Rua Lu′?s Reis Santos, Pinhal de Marrocos, 3030-788 Coimbra, Portugal b MEMS, Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Minho, Campus de Azure′m, 4800-058 Guimara?es, Portugal Received 5 January 2015; received in revised form 20 July 2015; accepted 6 November 2015 Available online 14 November 2015 Highlights ? A new 3D contact surface smoothing approach for large deformation contact problems between deformable bodies is proposed. ? The local Nagata patch interpolation is used to smooth arbitrary surface meshes. ? The original curvature of the master surface is recovered using a relatively coarse mesh. ? The non-physical contact force oscillations usual in the faceted surface representation are eliminated. ? The accuracy, robustness and performance of the numerical simulations is improved adopting the surface smoothing method. Abstract This paper presents a contact surface smoothing method combined with the node-to-segment discretization technique to solve large deformation frictional contact problems between deformable bodies. The Nagata patch interpolation is used to smooth the surface mesh, providing a master surface with quasi-G1 continuity between patches. Moreover, the local support of the interpolation method allows to deal with surface meshes of arbitrary topology (regular and irregular finite element discretizations), as well as hybrid meshes. The non-physical oscillations in the contact force evolution, induced by the faceted contact surface representation, are reduced using the proposed smoothing method. Furthermore, the smooth representation of the master surface allows a more accurately evaluation of the resulting stresses and forces, w