Dual-Dual Formulation for a Contact Problem with Friction

A variational inequality formulation is derived for some frictional contact problems from linear elasticity. The formulation exhibits a two-fold saddle point structure and is of dual-dual type, involving the stress tensor as primary unknown as well as the friction force on the contact surface by means of a Lagrange multiplier. The approach starts with the minimization of the conjugate elastic potential. Applying Fenchel's duality theory to this dual minimization problem, the connection to the primal minimization problem and a dual saddle point problem is achieved. The saddle point problem possesses the displacement field and the rotation tensor as further unknowns. Introducing the friction force yields the dual-dual saddle point problem. The equivalence and unique solvability of both problems is shown with the help of the variational inequality formulations corresponding to the saddle point formulations, respectively.