Variationally consistent quadratic finite element contact formulations for finite deformation contact problems on rough surfaces.pdfVIP

Finite Elements in Analysis and Design 109 (2016) 37–53 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Finite Elements in Analysis and Design journal homepage: /locate/?nel Variationally consistent quadratic ?nite element contact formulations for ?nite deformation contact problems on rough surfaces Saskia Sitzmann a,n, Kai Willner a, Barbara I. Wohlmuth b a Chair of Applied Mechanics, University Erlangen-Nuremberg, Egerlandstra?e 5, 91058 Erlangen, Germany b Institute for Numerical Mathematics, Technical University Munich, Boltzmannstra?e 3, 85748 Garching, Germany article info Article history: Received 18 March 2015 Received in revised form 21 September 2015 Accepted 22 September 2015 Available online 28 October 2015 Keywords: Contact with regularization Dual mortar methods Perturbed Lagrangian formulation Quadratic elements Petrov–Galerkin Industrial applications abstract Although different discrete formulations for contact problems have been widely studied during the last decade, the numerical simulation of complex industrial applications is still challenging. While suitable Lagrange multiplier based formulations are well-known for their consistency and stability in the case of classical model problems of Coulomb type, rough surface contact laws and additional multi-point constraints are much less understood. In this paper, we focus on a quadratic ?nite element approach for quasi-static calculations and extend ideas from our previous work on constitutive contact laws combined with suitable solutions for multi-point constraints like cyclic symmetry on the contact boundary. The popular dual mortar method is used to enforce the contact constraints in a variationally consistent way without increasing the algebraic system size. To avoid possible consistency errors of the dual mortar approach in case of large curvatures or gradients in the contact zone, an alternative quadratic Petrov– Galerkin mortar formulation is presented. Numerical examples demonstrate the robustness o