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LC-Grid: a linear global contact search algorithm for finite element analysis

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Abstract

The contact searching is computationally intensive and its memory requirement is highly demanding; therefore, it is significant to develop an efficient contact search algorithm with less memory required. In this paper, we propose an efficient global contact search algorithm with linear complexity in terms of computational cost and memory requirement for the finite element analysis of contact problems. This algorithm is named LC-Grid (Lei devised the algorithm and Chen implemented it). The contact space is decomposed; thereafter, all contact nodes and segments are firstly mapped onto layers, then onto rows and lastly onto cells. In each mapping level, the linked-list technique is used for the efficient storing and retrieval of contact nodes and segments. The contact detection is performed in each non-empty cell along non-empty rows in each non-empty layer, and moves to the next non-empty layer once a layer is completed. The use of migration strategy makes the algorithm insensitive to mesh size. The properties of this algorithm are investigated and numerically verified to be linearly proportional to the number of contact segments. Besides, the ideal ranges of two significant scale factors of cell size and buffer zone which strongly affect computational efficiency are determined via an illustrative example.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the International Cooperation Project of the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (No. 2008DFA51740), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 10972079 and 11172104). The valuable comments and suggestions from anonymous reviewers are gratefully acknowledged. Also the first author would want to express his gratitude to the China Scholarship Council and UNSW Canberra for their financial support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Engineering and Information Technology, The University of New South Wales, ADFA, Canberra, ACT,  2600, Australia

    Hu Chen

  2. Geophysics Group, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM , 87545, USA

    Zhou Lei

  3. School of Mechanical and Automotive Engineering, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510640, People’s Republic of China

    Mengyan Zang

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  1. Hu Chen
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  2. Zhou Lei
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  3. Mengyan Zang
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Correspondence to Mengyan Zang.

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Chen, H., Lei, Z. & Zang, M. LC-Grid: a linear global contact search algorithm for finite element analysis. Comput Mech 54, 1285–1301 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00466-014-1058-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00466-014-1058-5

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