SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS FOR AUTOMATIC LOADING IN FRICTIONAL CONTACT FORMULATED BY COMPLEMENTARITY

Abstract

With frictional contact problems, due to nonuniqueness and nonlinearity, the size of a load increment must be suitably determined to obtain the proper, physically meaningful path of response history. An automatic load increment method is proposed based on the sensitivity analysis of the solution with respect to the load scale parameter. A two-dimensional problem is considered for clarity and the method is illustrated by numerical calculations. The results clearly indicate the nonuniqueness situation and the importance of a proper path-following method. The sensitivity is also used for the optimization of initial separations which can minimize the maximum contact pressure.