A class of parabolic evolutionary quasivariational inequalities in contact mechanics

In this paper, we obtain an existence and uniqueness of the solution for a class of parabolic evolutionary quasivariational inequalities in contact mechanics under some mild conditions. We also study an error estimate for the parabolic evolutionary quasivariational inequality by employing the forward Euler difference scheme and the element-free Galerkin spatial approximation.

A HISTORY-DEPENDENT FRICTIONAL CONTACT PROBLEM WITH WEAR FOR THERMOVISCOELASTIC MATERIALS

In this manuscript we study a contact problem between a deformable viscoelastic body and a rigid foundation. Thermal effects, wear and friction between surfaces are taken into account. A variational formulation of the problem is supplied and an existence and uniqueness result is proved. The idea of the proof rested on a recent result on history-dependent quasivariational inequalities. Finally, a perturbation of the data is initiated and a convergence result is demonstrated when the perturbation parameter converges to zero.

Convergence results for primal and dual history-dependent quasivariational inequalities

We consider a class of history-dependent quasivariational inequalities for which we prove the continuous dependence of the solution with respect to the set of constraints. Then, under additional assumptions, we associate with each inequality in the class a new inequality, the so-called dual variational inequality, for which we state and prove existence, uniqueness, equivalence and convergence results. The proofs are based on various estimates, monotonicity and fixed-point arguments for history-dependent operators. Our abstract results are useful in the study of various mathematical models of contact. To provide an example, we consider a boundary value problem which describes the equilibrium of a viscoelastic body in contact with an elastic-rigid foundation. We list the assumptions on the data and derive both the primal and the dual variational formulation of the problem. Then, we state and prove existence, uniqueness and convergence results. We also provide the link between the two formulations, together with their mechanical interpretation.

Differential quasivariational inequalities in contact mechanics

We consider a new class of differential quasivariational inequalities, i.e. a nonlinear system that couples a differential equation with a time-dependent quasivariational inequality, both defined on abstract Banach spaces. We state and prove a general fixed principle that provides the existence and the uniqueness of the solution of the system. Then we consider a relevant particular setting for which our abstract result holds. We proceed with two examples that arise in Contact Mechanics. For each example, we describe the physical setting, the mathematical model and the assumption on the data. Then we state the variational formulation of each model, which is in the form of a differential quasivariational inequality. Finally, we apply our abstract results to provide the unique weak solvability of the corresponding contact problems.