A polygonal-FEM technique in modeling large sliding contact on non-conformal meshes: A study on polygonal shape functions

Abstract

Purpose

In this paper, the polygonal-FEM technique is presented in modeling large deformation – large sliding contact on non-conformal meshes. The purpose of this paper is to present a new technique in modeling arbitrary interfaces and discontinuities for non-linear contact problems by capturing discontinuous deformations in elements cut by the contact surface in uniform non-conformal meshes.

Design/methodology/approach

The geometry of contact surface is used to produce various polygonal elements at the intersection of the interface with the regular FE mesh, in which the extra degrees-of-freedom are defined along the interface. The contact constraints are imposed between polygonal elements produced along the contact surface through the node-to-surface contact algorithm.

Findings

Numerical convergence analysis is carried out to study the convergence rate for various polygonal interpolation functions, including the Wachspress interpolation functions, the metric shape functions, the natural neighbor-based shape functions, and the mean value shape functions. Finally, numerical examples are solved to demonstrate the efficiency of proposed technique in modeling contact problems in large deformations.

Originality/value

A new technique is presented based on the polygonal-FEM technique in modeling arbitrary interfaces and discontinuities for non-linear contact problems by capturing discontinuous deformations in elements cut by the contact surface in uniform non-conformal meshes.

Citation

Khoei, A.R., Yasbolaghi, R. and Biabanaki, S.O.R. (2015), "A polygonal-FEM technique in modeling large sliding contact on non-conformal meshes: A study on polygonal shape functions", Engineering Computations, Vol. 32 No. 5, pp. 1391-1431. https://doi.org/10.1108/EC-04-2014-0070