Contact with friction between 3D beams with deformable circular cross-sections

In this paper, contact with friction between three-dimensional elastic beams with deformations at the contact zone is analysed. It is assumed that the analysed beams undergo large displacements, although the strains remain small and the cross-sections of the beams are deformed. To include the deformation effect the classical analytical result from Hertzian contact between two elastic cylinders is used [3]. The penalty method is applied to enforce normal contact and friction constraints and the appropriate kinematic variables are defined, linearised and discretised for the finite element method implementation.