Mortar methods for contact problems

Abstract

For the numerical approximation of nonlinear contact problems, mortar methods provide a powerful and efficient tool. To detect the correct contact zone and to decompose it into the sliding and sticking part for Coulomb friction, we use primal-dual active set strategies. Combining these strategies with optimal multigrid methods, we get an efficient inexact approach. The extension of the mortar approach to thermal contact problems, to the case of large deformations and nearly incompressible materials is shown. Numerical results in 2D and 3D are given to illustrate the flexibility of the algorithm. © Springer 2006.