On contact interaction between a moving massive body and a linear elastic half space (Q1892277)

Let us consider the motion of rigid body, of finite volume, which rolls and slides on a plane surface constituting the upper boundary of an elastic half-plane. The differential equations governing the problem are those of classical dynamics for the moving body, while, for the substratum, the inertia forces are neglected. The contact region between the body and the substratum can be divided, at each instant, into two parts, one in which there is full adhesion, and another where tangential sliding occurs. The extent of these two regions in not known in advance because it depends on the solution. The problem requires the solution of a variational inequality, but in this case, since the total energy is a non-convex functional, there is not a general theory ensuring the existence and the uniqueness of a solution. For this reason, the authors make recourse to the finite difference method, by replacing the partial derivatives with respect to the time with finite increments, and solving the problem at each interval of time. The method, however, converges only under suitable regularity conditions on the limiting fiction force.