On Challenges in Structural Analysis of Rubber Components: Frictional Contact

Abstract

Structural analysis of rubber components is often complicated by significant geometrical non-linearity of deformation, incompressibility, complex constitutive models, and the contact nature of boundary/loading conditions. The last challenge is especially important due to the uniquely high friction of rubber. The article provides an advanced approach to mitigate contact challenges for very large coefficients of friction (COF) in rubber. It is shown that the nature of this challenge fundamentally differs from other rubber-related structural issues (incompressibility, large deformations, etc.). A mathematical description of the challenge is considered in detail in this article. An efficient method is proposed for problems with high COF. The method provides solutions for problems where the desired convergence cannot be achieved using traditional techniques. The proposed approach also offers a simple and convenient capability to check if obtained convergent results are really true solutions. Also, a simple benchmarking problem is proposed for validation of computational contact algorithms at very high friction in rubber.