A globally convergent filter-trust-region method for large deformation contact problems

Abstract

We present a globally convergent method for the solution of frictionless large deformation contact problems for hyperelastic materials. The discretization uses the mortar method which is known to be more stable than node-to-segment approaches. The resulting nonconvex constrained minimization problems are solved using a filter--trust-region scheme, and we prove global convergence towards first-order optimal points. The constrained Newton problems are solved robustly and efficiently using a truncated nonsmooth Newton multigrid method with a monotone multigrid linear correction step. For this we introduce a cheap basis transformation that decouples the contact constraints. Numerical experiments confirm the stability and efficiency of our approach.