Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea ISSN:1229-3059(Print) 2287-2302(Online) 한국전산구조공학회 논문집

This paper presents a structural contact analysis method based on element connectivity parameterization for structural optimization. Sensitivity analysis with respect to design variables is required in structural optimization, necessitating a continuous and differentiable contact model. However, conventional structural contact analysis methods are difficult to apply to optimization because of the discontinuity in the contact states. In addition, numerical issues such as the inversion of void elements may occur in large deformation problems. To address these issues, this paper presents a new structural contact analysis method using particle-added element connectivity parameterization (P-ECP). In this method, the contact penetration depth is calculated using the density gradient, and the contact potential energy is defined based on the penetration model established in this study. Subsequently, the structural contact problem is formulated using the principle of minimum potential energy. To verify the applicability of the present method, a two-dimensional Digeut-shaped structural contact problem and a cylinder–flat plate contact problem are solved. The proposed method was compared with the conventional node-surface contact analysis method. The results show that the proposed method produces a stress distribution similar to that of the conventional method. In addition, stable contact analysis is performed without the inversion of void elements, even under large deformation conditions. These results demonstrate that the current method can be utilized as a contact analysis method for structural optimization.