Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
A multisymplectic integrator for elastodynamic frictionless impact problems
2017
Journal paper
We present a structure preserving numerical algorithm for the collision of elastic bodies. Our integrator is derived from a discrete version of the field-theoretic (multisymplectic) variational description of nonsmooth Lagrangian continuum mechanics, combined with generalized Lagrange multipliers to handle inequality constraints. We test the resulting explicit integrator for the longitudinal impact of two elastic linear bar models, and for the collision of a nonlinear geometrically exact beam model with a rigid plane. Numerical simulations for various physical parameters are presented to illustrate the behavior and performance of our approach. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.