Domain Decomposition Schemes for Frictionless

Multibody Contact Problems of Elasticity

Ivan I. Dyyak and Ihor I. Prokopyshyn

Abstract The class of parallel Robin (Poincaré) domain decomposition schemes

which are based on the penalty method and the simple iteration method for varia-
tional equations is proposed for solution of frictionless multibody contact problems
of elasticity. The convergence of these schemes is proved. The numerical analysis is
made for 2D contact problems using FEM approximations.

1 Introduction

The contact problems of elastic bodies are widely used in many fields of science
and engineering. The recent achievements on analytical and numerical methods for
solution of these problems are given in work [10].
Nowadays the numerical methods based on the theory of variational inequalities
have become very popular for solving contact problems of elasticity. The develop-
ment of domain decomposition methods (DDM) has given a powerful incentive to
this approach, especially for the solution of multibody contact problems. The brief
overview of existing DDM for contact problems is given in [4, 10].
Using the penalty variational formulation and the simple iteration method for
variational equations we have proposed parallel Neumann and parallel Dirichlet
domain decomposition schemes for solution of unilateral frictionless two-body con-
tact problems of elasticity [9]. These schemes have been generalized for multibody
contact problems and their convergence has been proved [2].

I.I. Dyyak (B)

Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, Ukraine
e-mail: dyyak@franko.lviv.ua
I.I. Prokopyshyn
IAPMM, Naukova 3-b, 79060, Lviv, Ukraine
e-mail: ihor84@gmail.com

G. Kreiss et al. (eds.), Numerical Mathematics and Advanced Applications 2009, 297
DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-11795-4 31, © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010
298 I.I. Dyyak and I.I. Prokopyshyn

In this contribution we propose wider class of parallel Robin (Poincaré) domain

decomposition methods for frictionless contact problems which includes the schemes
we have considered earlier in [2, 9].

2 Formulation of the Frictionless Multibody Contact Problem

Let us consider the frictionless contact problem of N elastic bodies ˝˛  R3 with

S
sectionally smooth boundaries ˛ D @˝˛ , ˛ D 1; 2; :::; N , ˝ D N ˛D1 ˝˛ (Fig. 1).
A stress-strain state of each body ˝˛ is described by the vector of displacements
u˛ D u˛ i ei , by the tensor of strains O ˛ D "˛ ij ei ej and by the tensor of stresses
O ˛ D ˛ ij ei ej . These quantities satisfy Cauchy relations, Hooke’s Law and the
equilibrium equations:
 
1 @u˛ i @u˛ j
"˛ ij D C ; i; j D 1; 2; 3 ; (1)
2 @xj @xi
˛ ij D C˛ ijkl "˛ kl ; i; j D 1; 2; 3 ; (2)
@˛ ij
C f˛ i D 0; i D 1; 2; 3 ; (3)
@xj
where f˛ i ; i D 1; 2; 3 are the components of the volume forces vector f˛ D f˛ i ei .
Let us introduce the outer unit normal n˛ and the local coordinate system
 ˛ ;  ˛ ; n˛ on the boundary ˛ . Then the displacements and the stresses on the
surface can be written in the following way:

u˛ D u˛   ˛ C u˛   ˛ C u˛ n n˛ ;  ˛ D O ˛
n˛ D ˛   ˛ C ˛   ˛ C ˛ n n˛ :
S S
The boundaryS˛ of every domain consists of three parts: ˛ D ˛u ˛ S˛ ,
where S˛ D ˇ 2B ˛ S˛ ˇ is the possible contact area of body ˝˛ with other bodies,

p3

Γ2u f2 Γ3σ
Ω2
d12 f3
d13 Ω3
p2 Γ2σ S21 Γ3u
S12 S31
S13

Ω1 x3
f1
Γ1σ
p1
x2
Fig. 1 Contact of several 3D Γ1u
bodies x1
Domain Decomposition Schemes for Frictionless Multibody Contact Problems 299

S˛ ˇ is the possible contact area of body ˝˛ with body ˝ˇ and B˛  f1; 2; : : : ; N g

is the set of the indexes of all bodies which contact with body ˝˛ .
We assume that surfaces S˛ ˇ  ˛ and Sˇ ˛  ˇ are sufficiently close in a
sense that n˛ .x/  nˇ .x0 /, x 2 S˛ ˇ , x0 D P .x/ 2 Sˇ ˛ – projection of x on Sˇ ˛
[5, 6]. Let d˛ ˇ .x/ D kx  x0 k be a distance between bodies ˝˛ and ˝ˇ before the
deformation.
On the part ˛u the kinematical (Dirichlet) boundary conditions are prescribed:

u˛ .x/ D 0; x 2 ˛u : (4)

On the part ˛u we consider the static (Neumann) boundary conditions:

 ˛ .x/ D p˛ .x/; x 2 ˛ ; (5)

where p˛ are prescribed boundary stresses.



On the possible contact areas S˛ ˇ x 2 S˛ ˇ ; x0 D P .x/ 2 Sˇ ˛ the unilateral
frictionless contact conditions hold:
˛ n .x/ D ˇ n .x0 /  0 ; (6)
˛  .x/ D ˇ  .x0 / D 0; ˛  .x/ D ˇ  .x0 / D 0 ; (7)
u˛ n .x/ C uˇ n .x0 /  d˛ ˇ .x/ ; (8)


u˛ n .x/ C uˇ n .x0 /  d˛ ˇ .x/ ˛ n .x/ D 0 : (9)

3 Variational Formulations of the Problem: The Penalty

Method

3
Let us consider Sobolev space V˛ D H 1 .˝˛ / at the domain ˝˛ and the closed
subspace V˛0 D fu˛ W u˛ 2 V˛ I u˛ .x/ D 0; x 2 ˛u g. The space V0 D V10 
P
:::  VN0 is the Hilbert space with the scalar product .u; v/V 0 D N˛D1 .u˛ ; v˛ /V ˛ 0 ,
u; v 2 V0 .
Let us introduce the closed convex set of all displacements at V0 which satisfy
the non-penetration contact conditions (8):
˚ 
K D u W u 2 V0 I u˛ n .x/ C uˇ n .x0 /  d˛ ˇ .x/; x 2 S˛ ˇ ; x0 2 Sˇ ˛ ; (10)

where f˛; ˇg 2 Q , Q D ff˛; ˇg W ˛ 2 f1; 2; : : : ; N g ; ˇ 2 B˛ g.

The contact problem (1) – (9) has an alternative formulation as the minimization
problem of the quadratic functional at the set K [6, 7]:

1
F .u/ D A .u; u/  L .u/ ! min ; (11)
2 u2K
300 I.I. Dyyak and I.I. Prokopyshyn
P
where A .u; v/ D N ˛D1 a˛ .u˛ ; v˛ / is the bilinear form which represents the total
P
deformation energy of the system of bodies and L .u/ D N ˛D1 l ˛ .u˛ / is the linear
form which is equal to the external forces work,
Z
a˛ .u˛ ; v˛ / D O ˛ .u˛ / W O ˛ .v˛ / d˝ ; u˛ ; v˛ 2 V˛0 ;
˝˛

Z Z
l ˛ .v˛ / D p˛
v˛ dS C f˛
v˛ d˝ ; v˛ 2 V˛0 ; ˛ D 1; 2; : : : ; N :
  ˝˛
˛

The bilinear form A is symmetric, continuous and coercive, and the linear form L
is continuous, i.e.,
8 u; v 2 V0 A .u; v/ D A .v; u/ ; (12)
9 M > 0 8 u; v 2 V0 jA .u; v/j  M kukV 0
kvkV 0
; (13)

9 B > 0 8 u 2 V0 A .u; u/  B kuk2V 0 ; (14)

9 H > 0 8 v 2 V0 jL .v/j  H kvkV 0
: (15)
According to [1, 6, 7], the minimization problem (11) has the unique solution at
the set K and is equivalent to the following variational inequality:

A .u; v  u/  L .v  u/  0 ; 8 v 2 K; u 2 K : (16)
To satisfy the non-penetration condition (8) and to obtain an unconstrained
optimization problem, we have used the penalty method with following penalty [5]:
X Z
1 
 2
J .u/ D d˛ ˇ .x/  u˛ n .x/  uˇ n .x0 / dS: (17)
2 S˛ ˇ
f˛; ˇ g 2 Q



Here  > 0 is a penalty parameter, and the quantity ˛ ˇ D d˛ ˇ  u˛ n  uˇ n =
has a sense of the contact stress.
Let us consider the following unconstrained minimization problem:

1
F .u/ D A .u; u/  L.u/ C J .u/ ! min : (18)
2 u2V 0

The penalty J is two times Gateaux differentiable at V0 and the Gateaux derivatives
satisfy the properties:
ˇ ˇ
8 u 2 V0 9 R > 0 8 v 2 V0 ˇJ 0 .u; v/ˇ  R kukV 0
kvkV 0
; (19)
ˇ ˇ
9 D > 0 8 u; v; w 2 V0 ˇJ 00 .u; v; w/ˇ  D kvkV 0
kwkV 0
; (20)
00
8 u; v 2 V0 J .u; v; v/  0: (21)
Domain Decomposition Schemes for Frictionless Multibody Contact Problems 301

Due to the properties (12)–(15) and (19)–(21), it can be shown that the functional
F is two times Gateaux differentiable, strictly convex, weakly lower semicon-
tinuous and lim F .u/ D 1. Hence [1], there exists the unique solution
kukV 0
!1
of the minimization problem (18) and this problem is equivalent to the following
variational equation:

A .u; v/ C J 0 .u; v/  L .v/ D 0 ; 8 v 2 V0 ; u 2 V0 ; (22)

where
X Z
1 
 

J 0 .u; v/ D  d˛ ˇ  u ˛ n  u ˇ n v˛ n C v ˇ n dS:
 S˛ ˇ
f˛; ˇ g 2 Q

Using the results of works [3, 8], we have proved the next theorem about the
convergence of this method.
Theorem 1. If uN  2 V0 is the solution of the variational equation (22) for
 > 0 and if uN 2 K is the solution of the variational inequality (16), then
kuN   uk
N V 0 ! 0.
 !0

4 The Simple Iteration Method and Domain Decomposition

Let G.u; v/ be a bilinear form on V0  V0 which satisfies properties:

8 u; v 2 V0 G .u; v/ D G .v; u/ ; (23)

f > 0 8 u; v 2 V0 jG .u; v/j  f

9M M kukV kvkV ; (24)
0 0

e kukV
e > 0 8 u 2 V0 G .u; u/  B 2
9B 0
: (25)
For the numerical solution of the nonlinear variational equation (22) we use the
simple iteration method [3] in the form [2, 9]:
h i
G .ukC1 ; v/ D G .uk ; v/  A .uk ; v/ C J 0 .uk ; v/  L .v/ ; k D 0; 1; : : : ;
(26)
where uk 2 V0 is the k-th approximation to the exact solution uN 2 V0 of the problem
(22) and 2 R is an iterative parameter.
We have proved the next theorem [2], which generalize the theorem about the
convergence of the simple iteration method for linear variational equations [3].
Theorem 2. Let conditions (13)–(15), (19)–(21), (23)–(25) hold and the iteration
e .M C D/2 .
parameter lies in the interval .0I 2 / , 2 D 2B B=
k
Then the sequence fu g  V0 obtained by the iterative method (26) con-
verges strongly in V0 to the exact solution uN 2 V0 of the variational equation (22),
302 I.I. Dyyak and I.I. Prokopyshyn

i.e. uk  uN V ! 0 . Moreover, the convergence rate in the norm kukG D
0 k!1
p
G .u; u/ is linear: ukC1  uN G  q uk  uN G , q D Œ1  .2B  .M C

1
D/2 =Be =f M 2 < 1.
Let us choose the bilinear form G in the simple iteration method (26) as follows

G .u; v/ D A .u; v/ C X.u; v/; u; v 2 V0 ; (27)

where
X Z
1 

X.u; v/ D u ˛ n v˛ n C u ˇ n vˇ n ˛ˇ dS; (28)
 S˛ ˇ
f˛; ˇ g 2 Q

(
0; x 2 S˛ ˇ nS˛1 ˇ
˛ˇ .x/ D ; S˛1 ˇ  S˛ ˇ ; f˛; ˇg 2 Q:
1; x 2 S˛1 ˇ

The surface S˛1 ˇ is a subset of S˛ ˇ , and the function ˛ ˇ is the characteristic

function of the area S˛1 ˇ .
Thus, the simple iteration method (26) with the bilinear form (27) can be written
in the following way:

A .uQ kC1 ; v/ C X .uQ kC1 ; v/ D L .v/ C X.uk ; v/  J 0 .uk ; v/ ; (29)

ukC1 D uQ kC1 C .1  / uk ; k D 0; 1; : : : : (30)

The bilinear form X is symmetric, continuous and nonnegative. Therefore, accord-
ing to Theorem 2, the sequence fuk g converges strongly to the solution of (22) for
2 .0I 2 /.
As the common quantities of the subdomains are known from the previous
iteration, then the method (29) and (30) leads to domain decomposition and the vari-
ational equation (29) splits into N separate variational equations for each subdomain
˝˛ :
Z  
1 X
a˛ .uQ kC1
˛ ; v ˛ / C ˛ˇ Q
u kC1
˛n  u k
˛n v˛ n dS D (31)
 S˛ ˇ
ˇ 2B ˛
Z  
1 X
D l ˛ .v˛ / C d˛ ˇ  uk˛ n  ukˇn v˛ n dS;
 S˛ ˇ
ˇ 2B ˛

ukC1
˛ D uQ kC1
˛ C .1  / uk˛ ; ˛ D 1; 2; : : : ; N; k D 0; 1; : : : : (32)
At each iteration k we have to solve N parallel elasticity problems (31) with
general Robin (Poincaré) condition on S˛ ˇ . Hence, this method refers to the parallel
Robin (Poincaré) domain decomposition schemes.
Domain Decomposition Schemes for Frictionless Multibody Contact Problems 303

By choosing different characteristic functions ˛ ˇ D ˛ ˇ .x/, f˛; ˇg 2 Q in the

method (31) and (32), we can get different domain decomposition schemes. Thus,
taking ˛ ˇ .x/  0 8 f˛; ˇg 2 Q, we get the parallel Neumann method [2, 9]:
 
˛kˇ D d˛ ˇ  uk˛ n  ukˇn = ; (33)

X Z
a˛ .uQ kC1
˛ ; v˛ / D l ˛ .v˛ / C ˛kˇ v˛ n dS ; (34)
S˛ ˇ
ˇ 2B ˛

ukC1
˛ D uQ kC1
˛ C .1  / uk˛ ; ˛ D 1; 2; : : : ; N; k D 0; 1; : : : : (35)
If at each iteration k we choose
(
k 0; d˛ ˇ .x/  uk˛ n .x/  ukˇn .x0 /  0
˛ ˇ D ˛ ˇ .x/ D ; x 2 S˛ ˇ ; x 0 2 Sˇ ˛ ;
1; d˛ ˇ .x/  uk˛ n .x/  ukˇn .x0 / < 0
(36)
then we shall get the method [9]:
Z  
1 X
a˛ .uQ kC1
˛ ; v˛ / C k˛ ˇ uQ kC1
˛n  .d ˛ ˇ  u k
ˇ n / v˛ n dS D l ˛ .v˛ / ;
 S˛ ˇ
ˇ 2B ˛
(37)

ukC1
˛ D uQ kC1
˛ C .1  / uk˛ ; ˛ D 1; 2; : : : ; N; k D 0; 1; : : : : (38)
At each step k of this scheme we have to solve N parallel elasticity problems (37)
with prescribed displacements d˛ ˇ  ukˇn on a subset of the surface S˛ ˇ . Therefore
this method refers to nonstationary Dirichlet domain decomposition schemes.
Note, that in the most general case we can choose ˛ ˇ (i.e., S˛1 ˇ ) differently for
each f˛; ˇg 2 Q.
The advantages of proposed numerical domain decomposition schemes are the
simplicity and the regularization of the contact problem through the penalty method.

5 Numerical Investigations

The numerical analysis of the schemes (31) and (32) has been made for 2D contact
problem of two transversally isotropic bodies ˝1 and ˝2 with the plane of isotropy
parallel to the plane x2 D 0 (Fig. 2). We have used FEM with 15 quadratic triangular
elements on the possible contact area.
0 0
ı 0 material properties of the bodies are: E˛ D 1:0, E˛ D 0:5, ˛ D ˛ D 0:3,
The
G˛ G˛ D 2:0, where E˛ , ˛ and G˛ are the elasticity modulus, Poisson’s ratio and
the shear modulus in the plane of isotropy for the body ˝˛ respectively, and E˛0 , ˛0 ,
G˛0 are these constants in the orthogonal direction, ˛ D 1; 2.
The distance between bodies before the deformation is d12 D 103 x12 , the
compression of the bodies is  D 2:154434
103 .
304 I.I. Dyyak and I.I. Prokopyshyn

Fig. 2 Plane contact of two x2

bodies u21 = 0, u22 = –∆
8

u21 = 0 p21 = 0
Ω2
p22 = 0 p22 = 0

u11 = 0 p11 = 0
Ω1
p12 = 0 p12 = 0

0 u11 = 0, u12 = 0 4 x1

a b
m m
1 2
80 80
1
60 60

5
40 40
2,4
5
20 20
4 3
3
0 0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 γ –8 –7 –6 –5 –4 –3 lg εu

Fig. 3 Total iteration number m dependence: (a) on iteration parameter for accuracy "u D 103 ;
(b) on logarithmic accuracy lg "u for optimal iteration parameter D N

 ı ı

We have taken the penalty parameter in the form  D c h1 E10 C h2 E20 ,
where h˛ is the height of the body ˝˛ , ˛ D 1; 2 , and c D 0:05 is the dimensionless
penalty parameter.
We have used the following stopping criterion:
.
kC1 kC1
u˛ n  uk˛ n u˛ n  "u ; ˛ D 1; 2 ; (39)
2 2
qP  
where ku˛ n k2 D j 2 is the discrete norm, xj 2 S
j u˛ n .x / 12 are the finite
element nodes on the possible contact area, and "u > 0 is the relative accuracy.
At the Fig. 3 the convergence rates of different domain decomposition schemes
are compared. The first curve corresponds to the parallel Neumann scheme
1
.S12 D ;/, curves 2, 3, 4 and 5 correspond to the parallel Robin (Poincaré) schemes
Domain Decomposition Schemes for Frictionless Multibody Contact Problems 305

1 1
with S12 equal to Œ0I 0:5, Œ0I 1, Œ0I 1:5 and Œ0I 2 (S12 D S12 ) respectively.
Curve 3 also represents the nonstationary parallel Dirichlet scheme (37) and (38).
The optimal iteration parameters N , for the schemes represented at curves 1–5,
are 0.173, 0.39, 0.72, 0.85 and 0.92 respectively. For D N and accuracy "u D 103
these schemes converge in 21, 11, 5, 11 and 14 iterations.
Thus, the convergence rate of all methods is linear. The parallel Robin (Poincaré)
1
scheme with the surface closed to the real contact area .S12 D Œ0I 1/, and the
k
nonstationary parallel Dirichlet scheme . 12 D 12 / have the highest convergence
rates. These two schemes also have the widest convergence range for .
The problem of a priory determination of iterative parameter and its upper
bound 2 , as well as development of nonstationary schemes, need additional
study.

References

1. Céa, J.: Optimisation. Théorie et algorithmes. Dunod, Paris (1971)

2. Dyyak, I. I., Prokopyshyn, I. I.: The convergence of parallel Neumann domain decomposition
scheme for frictionless multibody contact problems of elasticity. Mat. Met. Fiz.-Mekh. Polya.
52(3), 78–89 (2009) [In Ukrainian]
3. Glowinski, R., Lions, J. L., Trémolières, R.: Analyse numérique des inéquations variation-
nelles. Dunod, Paris (1976)
4. Hüeber, S., Wohlmuth, B. I.: A primal-dual active set strategy for non-linear multibody contact
problems. Comput. Meth. Appl. Mech. Engrg. 194(27–29), 3147–3166 (2005)
5. Kikuchi, N., Oden, J. T.: Contact Problem in Elasticity: A Study of Variational Inequalities and
Finite Element Methods. SIAM, Philadelphia (1988)
6. Kravchuk, A. S.: The formulation of the contact problem for several deformable bodies as the
nonlinear programming problem. PMM. 42(3), 466–474 (1978) [In Russian]
7. Kuzmenko, V. I.: On variational approach to the theory of contact problems for nonlinear elastic
multilayer bodies. PMM. 43(5), 893–901 (1979) [In Russian]
8. Lions, J. L.: Quelques méthodes de résolution des problèmes aux limites non linéaire. Dunod,
Gauthier-Villars, Paris (1969)
9. Prokopyshyn, I.: Parallel domain decomposition schemes for frictionless contact problems of
elasticity. Visnyk Lviv Univ. Ser. Appl. Math. Comp. Sci. 14, 123–133 (2008) [In Ukrainian]
10. Wriggers, P.: Computational Contact Mechanics, second ed. Springer, Heidelberg (2006)
Analysis and Acceleration of a Fluid-Structure
Interaction Coupling Scheme

Michael R. Dörfel and Bernd Simeon

Abstract The aim of this contribution is to shed new light on the intrinsic properties
of fluid-structure coupling methods. By studying the Dirichlet–Neumann coupling
for a one-dimensional model problem, it is shown that the masses at the interface can
be shifted to accelerate the convergence of the extensively applied Gauss–Seidel-
type iteration. Furthermore, the applied time integration as well as the size of the
spatial grid adjacent to the interface influence the convergence behavior. Numerical
studies confirm the results.

1 Introduction

In recent years, research in fluid-structure interaction has attracted much attention.

Not only the problem variety ranges from aeroelasticity to biomedical applications,
but also the solver strategies vary from monolithic approaches where both fields are
solved simultaneously [1, 6, 10] to partitioned approaches where separate solvers
for the fluid and structural subproblems are employed [2, 12]. Finding efficient and
robust coupling schemes in the latter turn out to be very challenging in particular in
biomedical applications such as hemodynamics due the physical properties of the
interaction between blood flow and arterial wall [4, 5, 11]. As discovered by Förster
et al. in [4], the mass densities of the fluid and the wall play a crucial role here
leading to the so-called “added mass” effect, which represents, in case of weak cou-
pling, an instability. In case of strong Dirichlet–Neumann coupling, on the other
hand, iterative schemes in the fashion of the Gauss–Seidel technique and conver-
gence acceleration by Aitken’s method are in wide use [5, 11, 13]. As was recently
shown by Joosten et al. [9] for a model problem with discrete masses the mass
densities are also relevant here.

M.R. Dörfel (B) and B. Simeon

Center for Mathematical Sciences, Chair for Numerical Analysis, Technische Universität
München, Boltzmannstr. 3, 85748 Garching, Germany
e-mail: doerfel@ma.tum.de, simeon@ma.tum.de

G. Kreiss et al. (eds.), Numerical Mathematics and Advanced Applications 2009, 307
DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-11795-4 32, © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2010