Research Projects

Contact and friction phenomena are prevalent in various fields, making the development of robust algorithms essential for accurate understanding. Computational modeling of contact problems, including friction, wear, and adhesion, requires strong nonlinearities due to time-varying boundary conditions. These nonlinearities, combined with large deformations and material behavior, present significant challenges in developing accurate mathematical models, especially in the presence of contact. Numerical methods like finite element analysis (FEA) have been used to simulate contact problems, but they often lead to errors due to approximation of the contact surface and interaction with CAD geometry. The isogeometric analysis (IGA) technique by Hughes et al. addresses these issues by integrating CAD and FEA processes into one unified framework. IGA is widely accepted as a robust and efficient computational tool in computational contact mechanics. The present proposal proposes a variable-order NURBS discretization approach for 3D large deformation frictional contact problems, considering dynamic effects and self-contact during deformation. One major bottleneck in extending isogeometric analysis to complex geometries is creating volumetric models from CAD software-generated geometries. The applicants group has developed a robust pre-processing tool for isogeometric analysis, but it only generates analysis-suitable data for single patch geometries. There is a need to extend work on creating an efficient open-source pre-processing tool for users of isogeometric techniques.