The evolution and rate problems and the computation of all possible evolutions in quasi-static frictional contact Original Research Article

The present work studies several issues related to the quasi-static behavior of finite dimensional systems in frictional contact with rigid curved obstacles. Conditions for existence of quasi-static evolutions are discussed, the occurrence of angular bifurcations on a quasi-static trajectory is studied as well as the possibility of continuation of an equilibrium trajectory along the direction of a solution to the rate problem. Several complementarity formulations are presented for the quasi-static rate problem and the computation of all the solutions of that problem is performed.