Unilateral contact problems using quasi-active set strategy

Abstract

The unilateral contact problem can be formulated as a mathematical programming with inequality constraints. To resolve the difficulty in dealing with inequality constraints, a quasi-active set strategy algorithm was presented. At each iteration, it transforms the problem into one without contact in terms of the solution obtained in last iteration and initiates the current iteration using the solution of the transformed problem, and updates a group of contact pairs compared with Lemke algorithm that uqdates only one pair of contact points. The present algorithm greatly enhances the efficiency and numerical examples demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of the proposed algorithm.