On the contact problem between elastic plates (Q1195199)

Summary: We analyze the contact problem between two parallel thin linearly elastic plates under transverse loads. The contact between the deformed plates is assumed to be elastic. The equilibrium problem is formulated in variational form via virtual work or, equivalently, in terms of minimum of the total energy. We use the mathematical framework of the theory of variational inequalities and we give different equivalent formulations of the nonlinear elastic problem introduced above. Finally, we obtain existence and uniqueness results.