ON A FINITE ELEMENT METHOD FOR DYNAMIC CONTACT/IMPACT PROBLEMS
R. L. TAYLOR and P. PAPADOPOULOS Int. J. Num. Meth. Engr. 36, pp. 2123-2140, (1993)

Abstract
This paper addresses the formulation and discrete approximation of dynamic contact/impact initial-value problems. The continuous problem is presented in the context of non-linear kinematics. Standard semi-discrete time integrators are introduced and are shown to be unsuccessful in modeling the kinematic constraints imposed on the interacting bodies during persistent contact. A procedure that bypasses the aforementioned difficulty is proposed by means of a novel variational formulation. Numerical simulations are conducted and the results are reported and discussed.