Adaptive methods for frictionless contact problems

In this paper a posteriori error indicators for frictionless contact proble ms are presented. In detail, error indicators relying on superconvergence p roperties and error estimators based on duality principles are investigated . Applications are to 3D solids under the hypothesis of non-linear elastic material behaviour associated with finite deformations. A penalization tech nique is applied to enforce multilateral boundary conditions due to contact . The approximate solution of the problem is obtained by using the finite e lement method. Several numerical results are reported to show the applicabi lity of the adaptive algorithm to the considered problems. (C) 2001 Publish ed by Elsevier Science Ltd.