Dynamic computation of 2D segment-to-segment frictional contact for a flexible multibody system subject to large deformations

A new formulation is presented to simulate the segment-to-segment frictional contact dynamics of planar multibody systems that are subjected to large deformations and large motions. The contact bodies are meshed via planar elements of the absolute nodal coordinate formulation, which offers a C¹-continuous surface representation for contact regions. To maintain the optimal convergence, the mortar method is used to discretize the contact constraints, which are established in an integral form on the nonconforming contact surface. By using Coulomb's friction law, the switch between stick and slip status can be realized. The penalty approach and return mapping algorithm are adopted to enforce contact constraints. The rescale and reconstruction strategy proposed in the previous study of authors is improved to recover the gap functions and the tangential friction force. In the mortar space, the magnitudes of the normal contact force and tangential friction force are discretized via the third-order Hermite interpolation, while their directions are along the normal vector and tangential vector of the contact surface, respectively. Several numerical examples are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the formulation.