Adaptive methods for thermomechanical coupled contact problems

In this paper an adaptive method for the analysis of thermomechanical coupled multi‐body contact problems is presented. The method is applied to non‐linear elastic solids undergoing finite (thermal) deformations. The contact model considers non‐linear pressure‐dependent heat flux as well as frictional heating in the interface. A time–space‐finite element discretization of the governing equations is formulated including unilateral constraints due to contact. A staggered solution algorithm has been constructed that allows an independent spatial discretization of the coupled subproblems. A posteriori projection‐based error estimators, which enforce implicitly the special boundary conditions due to thermal contact, are used to control the spatial discretization as well as the adaptive time stepping. Numerical examples are presented to corroborate the applicability of the adaptive algorithm to the considered problem type. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A new strategy for the solution of frictional contact problems

This article is devoted to the development of a new heuristic algorithm for the solution of the general variational inequality arising in frictional contact problems. The existing algorithms devised for the treatment of the variational inequality representing frictional contact rely on the decomposition of the physical problem into two sub-problems which are then solved iteratively. In addition, the penalty function method and/or the regularization techniques are typically used in the solution of these reduced sub-problems. These techniques introduce user-defined parameters which could influence the convergence and accuracy of the solution. The new method presented in this article overcomes these difficulties by providing a solution for the general variational inequality without decomposition into sub-problems. This is accomplished using a new heuristic algorithm which utilizes mathematical programming techniques, and thus avoids the use of penalty or regularization methods. The versatility and reliability of the developed algorithm were demonstrated through implementation to the case of frictional contact of an elastic hollow cylinder with a rigid foundation. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Three‐dimensional numerical solution for wear prediction using a mortar contact algorithm

A finite element formulation to compute the wear between three‐dimensional flexible bodies that are in contact with each other is presented. The contact pressure and the bodies displacements are calculated using an augmented Lagrangian approach in combination with a mortar method, which defines the contact kinematics. The objective of this study is to characterize the wear rate coefficients for bimetallic pairs and to numerically predict the wear depths in new component designs. The proposed method is first validated with the classical pin‐on‐disc problem. Then, experimental results of wear for the metallic pairs used in internal combustion engine valves and inserts are presented and are taken as a reference solution. An example is provided that shows agreement of the numerical and experimental solution. Finally, the proposed algorithm is used to predict the wear in an application example: the wear in an internal combustion engine valve. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Smooth C1‐interpolations for two‐dimensional frictional contact problems

Finite deformation contact problems are associated with large sliding in the contact area. Thus, in the discrete problem a slave node can slide over several master segments. Standard contact formulations of surfaces discretized by low order finite elements leads to sudden changes in the surface normal field. This can cause loss of convergence properties in the solution procedure and furthermore may initiate jumps in the velocity field in dynamic solutions. Furthermore non‐smooth contact discretizations can lead to incorrect results in special cases where a good approximation of the contacting surfaces is needed. In this paper a smooth contact discretization is developed which circumvents most of the aformentioned problems. A smooth deformed surface with no slope discontinuities between segments is obtained by a C¹‐continuous interpolation of the master surface. Different forms of discretizations are possible. Among these are Bézier, Hermitian or other types of spline interpolations. In this paper we compare two formulations which can be used to obtain smooth normal and tangent fields for frictional contact of deformable bodies. The formulation is developed for two‐dimensional applications and includes finite deformation behaviour. Examples show the performance of the new discretization technique for contact. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An adaptive finite element approach for frictionless contact problems

The derivation of an a posteriori error estimator for frictionless contact problems under the hypotheses of linear elastic behaviour and infinitesimal deformation is presented. The approximated solution of this problem is obtained by using the finite element method. A penalization or augmented‐Lagrangian technique is used to deal with the unilateral boundary condition over the contact boundary. An a posteriori error estimator suitable for adaptive mesh refinement in this problem is proposed, together with its mathematical justification. Up to the present time, this mathematical proof is restricted to the penalization approach. Several numerical results are reported in order to corroborate the applicability of this estimator and to compare it with other a posteriori error estimators. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A formulation for electrostatic‐mechanical contact and its numerical solution

The progress in advanced technology fields requires more and more sophisticated formulations to consider contact problems properly. This paper is devoted to the development of a new constitutive model for electrostatic‐mechanical contacts, based on a micro–macro approach to describe the contact behaviour. The electric‐mechanical contact constitutive law is obtained considering the real microscopic shape of the contacting surfaces, the microscopic behaviour of force transmission and current flow. Some thermo‐mechanical macroscopic models based on microscopic characterizations have already been developed to compute the normal and tangential contact stiffness and the thermal contact resistance. On the basis of such macroscopic models, a similar model, suitable for the electric‐mechanical field, is developed. With reference to the thermal constriction resistance the electric contact resistance is studied, assuming a flux tube around each contacting asperity, and choosing a suitable geometry for its narrowing at the contact zone. The contact element geometry is based on well known theoretical and experimental micro‐mechanical laws, suitably adapted for the FEM formulation. The macroscopic stiffness matrix is calculated on the basis of the microscopic laws and it is continuously updated as a function of the changes in the mechanical and electric significant parameters. A consistent linearization of the set of equations is developed to improve the computational speed, within the framework of implicit methods. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Boundary element analysis of two-dimensional elastoplastic contact problems

A general boundary element formulation for contact problems, capable of dealing with local elastoplastic effects and friction, is presented. Both conforming and non-conforming problems may be analysed. The contact problem is solved by means of a direct constraint technique, in which compatibility and equilibrium conditions are directly enforced in the general system of equations. The contact areas are modelled with linear interpolation functions, and quadratic interpolation functions are used everywhere else. Elastoplasticity is solved by a BEM initial strain approach The Von Mises yield criterion with its associated flow rule is adopted. Both perfectly plastic and work hardening materials are studied in the proposed formulation.

An incremental loading technique is proposed, which allows accurate development of the loading history of the problem. The non-linear nature of these problems demands the use of an iterative procedure, to determine the correct frictional conditions at every node of the contact area and the value of the plastic strains at selected points where local yielding may have occurred. Several numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed formulation.     

Solving large‐scale nonlinear eigenvalue problems by rational interpolation and resolvent sampling based Rayleigh–Ritz method

Numerical solution of nonlinear eigenvalue problems (NEPs) is frequently encountered in computational science and engineering. The applicability of most existing methods is limited by the matrix structures, properties of the eigen‐solutions, sizes of the problems, etc. This paper aims to remove those limitations and develop robust and universal NEP solvers for large‐scale engineering applications. The novelty lies in two aspects. First, a rational interpolation approach (RIA) is proposed based on the Keldysh theorem for holomorphic matrix functions. Comparing with the existing contour integral approach, the RIA provides the possibility to select sampling points in more general regions and has advantages in improving the accuracy and reducing the computational cost. Second, a resolvent sampling scheme using the RIA is proposed to construct reliable search spaces for the Rayleigh–Ritz procedure, based on which a robust eigen‐solver, called resolvent sampling based Rayleigh–Ritz method (RSRR), is developed for solving general NEPs. The RSRR can be easily implemented and parallelized. The advantages of the RIA and the performance of the RSRR are demonstrated by a variety of benchmark and application examples. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A parallel two‐level domain decomposition based one‐shot method for shape optimization problems

A two‐level domain decomposition method is introduced for general shape optimization problems constrained by the incompressible Navier–Stokes equations. The optimization problem is first discretized with a finite element method on an unstructured moving mesh that is implicitly defined without assuming that the computational domain is known and then solved by some one‐shot Lagrange–Newton–Krylov–Schwarz algorithms. In this approach, the shape of the domain, its corresponding finite element mesh, the flow fields and their corresponding Lagrange multipliers are all obtained computationally in a single solve of a nonlinear system of equations. Highly scalable parallel algorithms are absolutely necessary to solve such an expensive system. The one‐level domain decomposition method works reasonably well when the number of processors is not large. Aiming for machines with a large number of processors and robust nonlinear convergence, we introduce a two‐level inexact Newton method with a hybrid two‐level overlapping Schwarz preconditioner. As applications, we consider the shape optimization of a cannula problem and an artery bypass problem in 2D. Numerical experiments show that our algorithm performs well on a supercomputer with over 1000 processors for problems with millions of unknowns. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A new parallel sparse direct solver: Presentation and numerical experiments in large‐scale structural mechanics parallel computing

The main purpose of this work is to present a new parallel direct solver: Dissection solver. It is based on LU factorization of the sparse matrix of the linear system and allows to detect automatically and handle properly the zero‐energy modes, which are important when dealing with DDM. A performance evaluation and comparisons with other direct solvers (MUMPS, DSCPACK) are also given for both sequential and parallel computations. Results of numerical experiments with a two‐level parallelization of large‐scale structural analysis problems are also presented: FETI is used for the global problem parallelization and Dissection for the local multithreading. In this framework, the largest problem we have solved is of an elastic solid composed of 400 subdomains running on 400 computation nodes (3200 cores) and containing about 165 millions dof. The computation of one single iteration consumes less than 20 min of CPU time. Several comparisons to MUMPS are given for the numerical computation of large‐scale linear systems on a massively parallel cluster: performances and weaknesses of this new solver are highlighted. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A new fast multipole boundary element method for solving large‐scale two‐dimensional elastostatic problems

A new fast multipole boundary element method (BEM) is presented in this paper for large‐scale analysis of two‐dimensional (2‐D) elastostatic problems based on the direct boundary integral equation (BIE) formulation. In this new formulation, the fundamental solution for 2‐D elasticity is written in a complex form using the two complex potential functions in 2‐D elasticity. In this way, the multipole and local expansions for 2‐D elasticity BIE are directly linked to those for 2‐D potential problems. Furthermore, their translations (moment to moment, moment to local, and local to local) turn out to be exactly the same as those in the 2‐D potential case. This formulation is thus very compact and more efficient than other fast multipole approaches for 2‐D elastostatic problems using Taylor series expansions of the fundamental solution in its original form. Several numerical examples are presented to study the accuracy and efficiency of the developed fast multipole BEM formulation and code. BEM models with more than one million equations have been solved successfully on a laptop computer. These results clearly demonstrate the potential of the developed fast multipole BEM for solving large‐scale 2‐D elastostatic problems. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A contact‐stabilized Newmark method for dynamical contact problems

The numerical integration of dynamical contact problems often leads to instabilities at contact boundaries caused by the non‐penetration condition between bodies in contact. Even an energy dissipative modification (see, e.g. (Comp. Meth. Appl. Mech. Eng. 1999; 180 :1–26)), which discretizes the non‐penetration constraints implicitly, is not able to circumvent artificial oscillations. For this reason, the present paper suggests a contact stabilization in function space, which avoids artificial oscillations at contact interfaces and is also energy dissipative. The key idea of this contact stabilization is an additional L²‐projection at contact interfaces, which can be easily added to any existing time integration scheme. In case of a lumped mass matrix, this projection can be carried out completely locally, thus creating only negligible additional numerical cost. For the new scheme, an elementary analysis is given, which is confirmed by numerical findings in an illustrative test example (Hertzian two‐body contact). Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Large‐scale parallel finite‐element analysis using the internet: a performance study

This paper describes a parallel finite‐element system implemented using the domain decomposition method on a cluster of remote computers connected via the Internet. This technique is also readily applicable to a grid computing environment. A three‐dimensional finite‐element elastic analysis involving more than one million degrees of freedom was solved using this system, and a good approximate solution was obtained with high parallel efficiency of over 90% using remote computers located in three different countries. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A novel method for integrating first‐ and second‐order differential equations in elastohydrodynamic lubrication for the solution of smooth isothermal,line contact problems

This paper contains details of recent developments in the analysis of elastohydrodynamic lubrication problems using the finite element method. A steady state isothermal finite element formulation of the smooth line contact problem with Newtonian lubricant behaviour is presented containing both first‐ and second‐order formulations of the hydrodynamic equation. Previous problems with the limited range of applicability of both first‐ and second‐order finite difference solutions have been overcome by summing both the first‐ and second‐order equations' weighted contributions. Application of the method to a range of problems unattainable by either single first‐ or second‐order formulations is presented. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A new algorithm for numerical solution of 3D elastoplastic contact problems with orthotropic friction law

3D elastoplastic frictional contact problems with orthotropic friction law belong to the unspecified boundary problems with nonlinearities in both material and geometric forms. One of the difficulties in solving the problem lies in the determination of the tangential slip states at the contact points. A great amount of computational efforts is needed so as to obtain high accuracy numerical results. Based on a combination of the well known mathematical programming method and iterative method, a finite element model is put forward in this paper. The problems are finally reduced to linear complementarity problems. A specially designed smoothing algorithm based on NCP-function is then applied for solving the problems. Numerical results are given to demonstrate the validity of the model and the algorithm proposed.The project is jointly supported by the National Natural Science Foundation (10225212, 50178016, 10302007), the National Key Basic Research Special Foundation (G1999032805), the Special Funds for Major State Basic Research Projects and the Foundation for University Key Teacher by the Ministry of Education of China. The authors are also grateful to the referees for their careful reading and detailed remarks on an earlier version of the paper.     

Complementarity methods for multibody friction contact problems in finite deformations

This paper deals with the frictional contact occurring between deformable elastoplastic bodies subjected to large displacements and finite deformations. Starting from a standard slave/master formulation we have developed a symmetrical formulation with which the unilateral contact conditions and the friction law are satisfied for each body. From the continuum equations, the discretized frictional contact problem is set as a complementarity problem and solved using Lemke's mathematical programming method. The efficiency of the method is illustrated in the case of several examples. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A dual BIE approach for large‐scale modelling of 3‐D electrostatic problems with the fast multipole boundary element method

A dual boundary integral equation (BIE) formulation is presented for the analysis of general 3‐D electrostatic problems, especially those involving thin structures. This dual BIE formulation uses a linear combination of the conventional BIE and hypersingular BIE on the entire boundary of a problem domain. Similar to crack problems in elasticity, the conventional BIE degenerates when the field outside a thin body is investigated, such as the electrostatic field around a thin conducting plate. The dual BIE formulation, however, does not degenerate in such cases. Most importantly, the dual BIE is found to have better conditioning for the equations using the boundary element method (BEM) compared with the conventional BIE, even for domains with regular shapes. Thus the dual BIE is well suited for implementation with the fast multipole BEM. The fast multipole BEM for the dual BIE formulation is developed based on an adaptive fast multiple approach for the conventional BIE. Several examples are studied with the fast multipole BEM code, including finite and infinite domain problems, bulky and thin plate structures, and simplified comb‐drive models having more than 440 thin beams with the total number of equations above 1.45 million and solved on a PC. The numerical results clearly demonstrate that the dual BIE is very effective in solving general 3‐D electrostatic problems, as well as special cases involving thin perfect conducting structures, and that the adaptive fast multipole BEM with the dual BIE formulation is very efficient and promising in solving large‐scale electrostatic problems. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A level‐set‐based large sliding contact algorithm for easy analysis of implant positioning

A finite element analysis of implant positioning inside a bone requires the creation of many meshes that model various implant orientations. This process can be very labour intensive and is difficult to automate. In order to facilitate this type of modelling, we present a large sliding contact algorithm that does not require the creation of a conforming discretization for the bone. The cavity inside the bone, necessary to accommodate the implant, is modelled with a Heaviside function calculated on the level set field, which is defined in terms of material coordinates of the bone. The algorithm is based on the minimization of the energy functional with a constraint term, formulated as in classical contact mechanics; however, instead of the distance function, we use the above‐mentioned level set function. The presented numerical 2D and 3D examples validate the algorithm against the solutions obtained with commercial finite element software. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.