BEM FRICTIONAL CONTACT ANALYSIS - MODELING CONSIDERATIONS

In this paper, the use of linear and quadratic elements for modelling frictional contact problems is studied. It is found that while linear elements are capable of modelling the frictional aspect of the problem accurately, the use of quadratic elements results in oscillations in the tangential tractions under certain contact conditions. Numerical studies of particular interest to these problems have been presented. The case of the oscillations in the quadratic results has been identified and eliminated by using linear elements locally, so that only those node-pairs nearest to the edges of contact can be brought into contact at any one load step. Outside the potential contact region, standard quadratic boundary elements were used.