Unilateral Contact Problems: Variational Methods and Existence Theorems

The mathematical analysis of contact problems, with or without friction, is an area where progress depends heavily on the integration of pure and applied mathematics. This book presents the state of the art in the mathematical analysis of unilateral contact problems with friction, along with a major part of the analysis of dynamic contact problems without friction.

Much of this monograph emerged from the authors’ research activities over the past 10 years and deals with an approach proven fruitful in many situations. Starting from thin estimates of possible solutions, this approach is based on an approximation of the problem and the proof of a moderate partial regularity of the solution to the approximate problem. This in turn makes use of the shift (or translation) technique – an important yet often overlooked tool for contact problems and other nonlinear problems with limited regularity. The authors pay careful attention to quantification and precise results to get optimal bounds in sufficient conditions for existence theorems.

Unilateral Contact Problems: Variational Methods and Existence Theorems a valuable resource for scientists involved in the analysis of contact problems and for engineers working on the numerical approximation of contact problems. Self-contained and thoroughly up to date, it presents a complete collection of the available results and techniques for the analysis of unilateral contact problems and builds the background required for further research on more complex problems in this area.