REVIEW OF BASIC CONCEPTS OF CONTACT MECHANICS OF FRICTIONLESS CONTACT WITH EMPHASIS ON PENALTY METHOD

Abstract

Problems involving contact are of great importance in industry related to mechanical and civil
engineering, but also in biomechanics and other applications. The contact interaction between
surfaces and different bodies like in a bolted splice connection joint or area in which a tire interacts
with the soil is not known a priori, leading to a nonlinear boundary value problem. Due to the rapid
improvement of modern computer technology, one can today apply the tools of computational
mechanics to analyze contact problems with required accuracy, depending on design requirements.
However, even now most of the standard finite element software is not fully capable of solving
contact problems, including friction, with robust algorithms. The aim of this paper is to present some
basic concepts of Contact Mechanich.