Contact between 3D beams with rectangular cross-sections

In this paper frictionless contact between 3D beams is analysed. The beam model is used in which large displacements but small strains are allowed. The element is derived on the basis of updated Lagrangian formulation using physical shape functions with shear effect included. An effective contact-search algorithm, which is necessary to determine an active set for the contact contribution treatment, is elaborated. The contact element uses the same set of physical shape functions as the beam element. A consistent linearization of contact contribution is derived and expressed in suitable matrix form, easy to use in FEM approximation. Several numerical examples depict the efficiency of the presented approach. Copyright (C) 2002 John Wiley Sons, Ltd.