Dual-dual formulation for a contact problem with friction

A variational inequality formulation is derived for some frictional contact problems from linear elasticity. The formulation exhibits a two-fold saddle point structure and is of dual-dual type, involving the stress tensor as primary unknown as well as the friction force on the contact surface by means of a Lagrange multiplier. The approach starts with the minimization of the conjugate elastic potential. Applying Fenchel's duality theory to this dual minimization problem, the connection to the primal minimization problem and a dual saddle point problem is achieved. The saddle point problem possesses the displacement field and the rotation tensor as further unknowns. Introducing the friction force yields the dual-dual saddle point problem. The equivalence and unique solvability of both problems is shown with the help of the variational inequality formulations corresponding to the saddle point formulations, respectively.This work is supported by the German Research Foundation within the priority program 1180 Prediction and Manipulation of Interactions between Structure and Process