Handling contact in multi-domain simulation of automobile crashes

This paper proposes a method to deal with unilateral contact in multi-domain, multi-time-scale calculations in explicit dynamics. The advantage of the approach chosen, which relies on a penalty-based contact model and a “master–slave” representation, is that it enables maximum uncoupling of each subdomain, which can evolve with its own stability time step. The algorithm involved guarantees kinematic continuity at the interfaces while exchanging minimal information among subdomains. Three examples of applications show the validity and the efficiency of the method compared to the classical, single-domain approach.