Numerical simulation of tribological devices used as a set of benchmarks for comparing contact algorithms

The aim of the present study was to carry out a numerical comparison of different frictional contact algorithms. Therefore three different contact algorithms (Lemke, penalty and Augmented Lagrangian) have been implemented into two finite element codes. The correct implementation and behavior of these contact algorithms has been investigated by modeling four different tribological devices. It is shown that all these different methodologies lead to extremely similar results. Besides these four applications have been carefully described and detailed in such a way that the presented tests can be reproduced. The authors wish that they could serve as a benchmark set in order to allow comparison with other finite element software including frictional contact capabilities.