Numerical studies of a hemivariational inequality for a viscoelastic contact problem with damage (Q2175833)

Many contact processes are accompanied with material damage. The authors study existence and solution of a mathematical model in the form of a hemivariational inequality (HVI) for a quasistatic bilateral frictional contact problem between a viscoelastic body and a rigid foundation. The damage of the material is incorporated through a parabolic differential inclusion. Since there are no solution formulas for HVIs in applications, a fully discrete numerical scheme is developed for the contact problem, where the time derivative of the damage function approximated by the backward finite difference and the spatial derivatives approximated by finite elements. Optimal order error estimates are derived under appropriate regularity assumptions. The discrete hemivariational inequality is reformulated as an optimization problem and solved using built-in constrained minimization algorithm from the Python library SciPy. Simulation results on a numerical example, illustrate numerical convergence orders that confirm the theoretical error bound.