Frictional contact problems with normal compliance (Q1114491)

The quasistatic problem of a linear elastic body in unilateral contact with a rigid support subject to Coulomb's friction law and a power law normal compliance is considered. Two approximations are derived. It is proved that the first, the incremental problem, possesses a solution but it is unique only if it is small and the coefficient of friction is small enough. It is suitable for numerical calculations. The second, the rate problem, captures exactly the path dependence of the quasistatic problem, is more suitable for theoretical investigations and possesses a unique solution for ``small'' coefficients.