THE VIRTUAL CONTACT LOADING METHOD FOR ELASTIC CONTACT PROBLEMS.

The virtual contact loading method (VCLM), a highly efficient numerical method to solve elastic contact problems, is proposed in this paper. Having applied virtual loads on the possible contact region (PCR) of a structure system, we carried out the usual finite-element calculations only once and made a local iteration analysis in PCR then the contact region (shape and size), contact state (stick, slide or mixed), contact normal and shear stress distributions, and the stress and displacement fields in contact bodies were all obtained simultaneously. This method is very simple and easy to use. The elastic contact problems for cylinder-cylinder are solved in this paper and the results agree well with those in previous work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]