What’s new in contact simulation ?
by M. Abbas, D. Kudawoo and G. Drouet ; EDF / R&D / AMA
Significant changes have occurred in the simulation of contact with version 13 of code_aster.
You said contact ?
First, you may have noticed that some methods have been removed, particularly those that simulate friction.
Indeed with the CONTINUE formulation now being used on a daily basis for industrial applications, historical "discrete" Lagrangian methods, hardly robust, have been removed. Nevertheless, discrete methods such as those based on penalty methods have been preserved, as well as the active set constraints and projected conjugate gradient (for contact without friction). These methods are still relevant for linear problems.
For non-linear problems (plasticity, large strains, etc), the CONTINUE formulation remains the recommended choice.
Major progress for quadractic contact
Finally, a new method has been added to code_aster, the LAC method (Local Average Contact), after research works (PhD) conducted by Guillaume Drouet and Patrick Hild. This method belongs to the family of "mortar" methods and is able to very accurately solve contact problems with incompatible meshes, quadratic or curved elements.