CONJUGATE-GRADIENT BASED PROJECTION - A NEW EXPLICIT COMPUTATIONAL METHODOLOGY FOR FRICTIONAL CONTACT PROBLEMS

With special attention towards the applicability to parallel computation or vectorization, a new and effective explicit computational approach for linear complementary formulations involving a conjugate gradient based projection methodology is proposed in this study for contact problems with Coulomb friction. The overall objectives are focused towards providing an explicit methodology of computation for the complete contact problem with friction. In this regard, the primary idea for solving the linear complementary formulations stems from an established search direction which is projected to a feasible region determined by the non-negative constraint condition; this direction is then applied to the Fletcher-Reeves conjugate gradient method resulting in a powerful explicit methodology which possesses high accuracy, excellent convergence characteristics, fast computational speed and is relatively simple to implement for contact problems involving Coulomb friction. Numerical test cases are also included to demonstrate the proposed methodology for contact problems with friction.