Contact, gapping and sliding are apparent in most of today’s industry sectors. For example many manufacturing processes including material forming, shrink fitting and casting – involve these phenomena. Similarly, there are everyday occurrences in the interaction of structural and mechanical components, e.g. in roller bearings, gear movements and bolted connections. This report presents details of ten benchmark problems involving contact, gapping and sliding. The benchmarks have been selected to illustrate the principal issues associated with the numerical solution of these phenomena and to introduce the current methodology and terminology relating to such problems.

The report presents a classification of contact, gapping and sliding problems and associated technical challenges, and the identification of physical attributes to be addressed in potential benchmarks. A background summary of various numerical approaches and geometric representations currently used for the solution to such problems is also presented.

Contents

List of Tables

List of Figures

Introduction

Technical background

Scope and objectives

Definitions

Classification of contact problems

Physical attributes

Numerical solution techniques

Geometric representation

Pitfalls in Finite Element Analysis

Summary of main contact issues

Selected benchmark problems

References

Table 1 Matrix of attributes covered by the selected benchmark problem

Figs. 1-23 Benchmark Figures