An Elasto-Viscoplastic Contact Problem: An a Posteriori Error Analysis and Computational Experiments

Abstract

In this paper, we reconsider a contact problem between an elasto-viscoplastic body and a deformable obstacle. The contact is modeled by the classical normal compliance contact condition. Then, fully discrete approximations are obtained by using the finite element method to approximate the spatial variable and the forward Euler scheme to discretize time derivatives. An a posteriori error analysis is provided and upper and lower error bounds are obtained. Finally, some two-dimensional numerical simulations are presented to demonstrate the accuracy and the behavior of the error estimators.