Isogeometric large deformation frictionless contact using T-splines

• T-spline isogeometric analysis is adopted to model frictionless contact problems.
• Analysis models are generated directly in the design environment.
• A convergence study for T-splines and uniform and non-uniform NURBS is performed.
• The superior accuracy of T-splines with respect to NURBS is demonstrated.

T-spline-based isogeometric analysis is applied to frictionless contact problems between deformable bodies in the context of large deformations. The continuum is discretized with cubic T-splines and cubic NURBS. A Gauss-point-to-surface formulation is combined with the penalty method to treat the contact constraints in the discretized setting. It is demonstrated that analysis-suitable T-splines, coupled with local refinement, accurately approximate contact pressures with far fewer degrees of freedom than NURBS. Both two- and three-dimensional examples are presented. Additionally, all T-spline analysis models are generated using commercially available T-spline modeling software without intermediate mesh generation or geometry clean-up steps.