A general 3D contact smoothing method based on radial point interpolation

•A general 3D contact smoothing method using radial point interpolation is proposed.•The method constructs local contact surfaces with polynomial and radial bases.•The constructed surface is smooth and passes exactly through the surface nodes.•The method shows good approximation in both coordinates and normal vector.•It can effectively reduce contact force oscillation and solve the chatter problem.

This paper presents a general 3D contact smoothing method based on the meshfree radial point interpolation method to improve the numerical simulation of contact problems. In particular, a locally smooth contact surface is constructed from the scattered surface nodes by point interpolation using the combination of polynomial and radial bases. With such bases, this method reproduces smooth surfaces even for coarse meshes and the constructed surface passes exactly through the surface nodes. Results for contact problems involving deformable bodies are included to demonstrate its advantages.