A new update procedure for internal variables in an ALE‐description of rolling contact

Abstract

AbstractIn FEM analysis of rolling contact problems Arbitrary Lagrangian‐Eulerian (ALE) methods are the state of the art. These methods allow mesh refinements concentrated to the contact region and offer a time independent formulation of stationary elastic rolling. The relative‐kinematic description of rolling leads to a relative motion between the finite element mesh and the material points. Thus in the case of inelastic material behavior history dependent constitutive equations contain convective terms. The handling of these convective terms is performed by a so called fractional step method. A material step is followed by a convection step. In the first step the nonlinear solid contact problem is resolved by neglecting the convective terms. In the following step the internal variables are transported on the streamlines of the material particles by solving the advection equation via a time‐discontinuous Galerkin method. This update procedure is demonstrated on a typical FEM‐tire model. (© 2005 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)