Mortar Finite Element Methods for Large Deformation Contact Mechanics

In this work, a mortar finite element formulation is
developed for solving large deformation frictional
contact problems in a robust and accurate manner.
The technique employs an integral projection of
contact variables on the contact surface to provide
a consistent representation of all contact variables
over a single discretization. A new global searching
algorithm based on bounding volume hierarchies, with
the distinct advantage of output sensitivity,
significantly improves the performance of the mortar
formulation. The algorithm is extended to self-
contact problems by applying a curvature criterion
with a new algorithm to detect subsurface
adjacencies. Finally, a lubricated contact
formulation based on the mortar element method is
developed. The fluid film thickness is computed with
a least squares projection based on dual basis
functions. Numerical examples presented in this book
demonstrate the superior performance of mortar
finite element methods for contact simulations.