2D contact smooth formulation based on the mortar method

In this paper, we apply a smoothing technique to solve contact problems using a segment-to-segment formulation based on the mortar method. In contact smoothing the C0 finite element description of the geometry is replaced by an improved smoothed one (usually with C1 continuity). So far these techniques have been applied to solve contact problems based on node-to-segment interaction. Some numerical examples are solved to compare the performance of the smoothing and non-smoothing formulations. The examples show that the non-smoothed mortar formulation is improved mainly for problems with matching curved surfaces discretized with non-conforming meshes.