A mortar-finite element formulation for frictional contact problems

In this paper a finite element formulation is developed for the solution of frictional contact problems. The novelty of the proposed formulation involves discretizing the contact interface with mortar elements, originally proposed for domain decomposition problems. The mortar element method provides a linear transformation of the displacement field for each boundary of the contacting continua to an intermediate mortar surface. On the mortar surface, contact kinematics are easily evaluated on a single discretized space. The procedure provides variationally consistent contact pressures and assures the contact surface integrals can be evaluated exactly. For the general case in which node-to-node contact does not occur, the formulation passes a contact patch test. Other numerical examples illustrate the applicability and accuracy of the proposed procedure. Copyright (C) 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.