Author(s)

A. Landenberger & A. El-Zafrany

Abstract

Gap finite elements provide a practical approach for dealing with elastic contact problems, and it is not possible to derive something similar with boundary elements. This work introduces a simple technique for the analysis of elastic contact problems by coupling a gap finite element subregion with boundary element subregions. The developed algorithm proves to be accurate and reliable, combining the advantages within contact problems of both the gap finite element and the boundary element method. 1 Introduction The use of numerical methods for the solution of contact problems has increased due to the variety of problems that can be solved and also because analytical solutions are very limited or often unavailable. Over the last few years, the Finite Element

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