Numerical tribology of a dry contact

Tribologists are confronted on a daily basis by the need to understand the causes and consequences of friction on the behaviour of bodies in contact. Understanding contact behaviour is not only a scientific curiosity but the key to solving numerous industrial issues. Numerical tools have been developed to overcome the problems encountered in experiments due to limitations in the local dynamic analysis of multi-scale systems (mechanisms, bodies in contact, interfaces). More than an exhibition of numerical results, the present paper proposes reviewing the literature on the numerical tribology of dry contacts by analysing the different scales involved. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved