Kick-Off Visit to IMT Lucca: Modelling of contact between rough surfaces

20 November 2018

IMCS researchers visited the Multi-scale Analysis of Materials Group (MUSAM) directed by Prof. Paggi (IMT Lucca) for our collaborative research on multi-scale modelling of contact phenomena. After MUSAM researchers have visited IMCS in September 2018 to initiate the collaboration, Nora Hagmeyer and Matthias Mayr now travelled to IMT Lucca to discuss progress and achievements. First steps towards a multi-scale model of frictionless normal contact have been accomplished, pathing the way towards the analysis of frictional contact problems undergoing large sliding.

This work is embedded into the collaborative research project “Multi-Scale Finite Element / Boundary Element Modeling of Frictional Contact for Complex Real-World Problems in Engineering” led by Prof. Paggi (IMT Lucca) and Prof. Popp (IMCS). Prof. Paggi is an expert in experimental and computational characterisation of rough surfaces while taking into account all relevant micro-mechanical features. IMCS contributes its expertise in large-scale computational contact simulations and provides a software environment to carry out these simulations on parallel computers. This collaborative project is funded by the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD) and the Ministero dell'Istruzione dell'Università e della Ricera (MIUR).