Modeling of Large Sliding Between Contacting Bodies by Penalty-Based Element-Free Galerkin Method Using Node-to-Segment Approach

The present study investigates large sliding contact behavior between solid bodies by employing the element-free Galerkin method (EFGM), which is a strong and efficient meshfree technique for modeling different types of engineering problems. Unlike the finite element technique, EFGM discretizes the domain into a set of nodes and constructs the displacement approximations by the moving least square method. Because of its meshless nature, all mesh related issues such as mesh distortion, mesh adaption get eliminated. The current study imposes the non-penetration conditions and other contact constraints by penalty-based approach. Large sliding occurring at contact interface has been modeled by employing the node-to segment technique. MATLAB programming language has been used to develop efficient and accurate EFGM codes to solve different types of numerical problems. The fidelity, efficiency and accuracy of the codes developed in the current study have been established by solving the benchmark problems whose results are available in literature. Finally, several numerical problems involving large sliding between contacting bodies are solved to demonstrate the potential, capability and efficiency of element-free Galerkin method in modeling large sliding contact problems.