A new algorithm to identify contact patterns between convex blocks for three-dimensional discontinuous deformation analysis

In discontinuity based numerical methods, determining the contact points between interacting blocks and the associated contact forces at each time step is an important and time consuming calculation. This paper presents a new algorithm for detection of all contact patterns between any two convex blocks. In the new developed method one of the two approaching faces is considered as “main plane” and vertices of another face that are within the tolerance of the main plane are stored. Then, according to the number of gathered points, different algorithms for searching real contact points and the type in global coordinate system are applied. Finally, the dominant contact of neighboring blocks is identified using the contacts found between approaching faces.