On the effect of the contact surface definition in the Cartesian grid finite element method

Abstract

Abstract The definition of the surface plays an important role in the solution of contact problems, as the evaluation of the contact force is based on the measure of the gap between the solids. In this work three different methods to define the surface are proposed for the solution of contact problems within the framework of the 3D Cartesian grid finite element method. A stabilized formulation is used to solve the contact problem and details of the kinematic description for each surface definition are provided. The three methods are compared solving some numerical tests involving frictionless contact with finite and small deformations.

Keywords

• Contact
• Immersed boundary
• cgFEM
• NURBS