Existence and uniqueness for dynamical unilateral contact with Coulomb friction: a model problem (Q5315500)

Consider the following evolution problem \[ \begin{aligned}\ddot{U} +K\cdot U = F + R,\quad t\in [0,T],&\quad \text{(motion equation)};\\ U(0) =U_{0},\quad \dot{U}^{+}(0)=V_{0}, &\quad \text{(initial condition)};\\ U_{N}\leq 0,\quad R_{N}\leq 0,\quad U_{N}R_{N}=0,& \quad \text{(unilateral contact)};\\ \int_{[0,T]}[R_{T}\cdot(V-\dot{U}^{+}_{T}) - \mu R_{N}(| V| -| \dot{U}^{+}_{T}| )]\,dt\geq 0\quad \forall V\in C^{0}([0,T];\mathbb R^{n-1}), &\quad \text{(Coulomb friction)};\\ U_{N}(t) = 0 \Longrightarrow \dot{U}^{+}_{T}(t)= -e\dot{U}^{-}_{T}(t),\quad t\in (0,T],&\quad \text{(impact law)}, \end{aligned} \] where \(U\in \mathbb R^{n},\) \(F\) denotes a given integrable function of \([0,T]\) into \(\mathbb R^{n}\), (external force), \(\mu\) a given nonnegative real constant (friction coefficient), \(e\in [0,1]\) a real constant (restitution coefficient) and \((U_{0},V_{0})\) some initial condition, assumed to be compatible with the unilateral constraint \[ U_{0N}\leq 0\quad \text{and}\quad U_{0N} = 0 \Longrightarrow V_{0N}\leq 0. \] Here, \(K\) is the symmetric positive definite stiffness matrix of order \(n.\) For \(X \in \mathbb R^{n}\), \(X_N\) denotes its first component (normal component) and \(X_{T}\) the vector of \(\mathbb R^{n-1}\) formed by the \(n-1\) last components of \(X\) (tangential component). The authors prove the existence and uniqueness of a solution to this problem.