Numerical analysis of two frictionless elastic-piezoelectric contact problems ✩

In this work, we consider two frictionless contact problems between an elastic-piezoelectric body and an obstacle. The linear elastic-piezoelectric constitutive law is employed to model the piezoelectric material and either the Signorini condition (if the obstacle is rigid) or the normal compliance condition (if the obstacle is deformable) are used to model the contact. The variational formulations are derived in a form of a coupled system for the displacement and electric potential fields. An existence and uniqueness result is recalled. Then, a discrete scheme is introduced based on the finite element method to approximate the spatial variable. Error estimates are derived on the approximate solutions and, as a consequence, the linear convergence of the algorithm is deduced under suitable regularity conditions. Finally, some two-dimensional examples are presented to demonstrate the performance of the algorithm. © 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.