A multiscale computational approach for contact problems Original Research Article

We introduce a two-scale computational strategy for the resolution of contact problems with friction, possibly with numerous contact surfaces; the structure studied may also be highly heterogeneous. The description of “micro” and “macro” quantities is performed on the interfaces arising from the decomposition of the structure studied into an assembly of substructures and interfaces. The efficiency and robustness of the method are illustrated on several examples. This iterative computational strategy is suitable for parallel computing; it can be interpreted as a mixed multilevel domain decomposition method. Its scalability has been demonstrated and comparisons with other domain decomposition methods are also given.