Analysis of a dynamic elastic-viscoplastic contact problem with friction (Q950573)

The authors deal with frictional contact, described by the Clarke sub-differential of nonconvex functions for the boundary conditions, between a deformable body, the behaviour of which is modelled by an elastic-viscoplastic constitutive law, and a foundation. A variational formulation in the form of a system involving an integral equation coupled with an evolutionary hemivariational inequality is used. Based on arguments of second-order evolutionary inclusions and fixed point methods, the existence and uniqueness of a unique weak solution is proved. Frictional contact phenomena involving rubber, metals, pastes or rocks arise ubiquitously, so that the paper represents a valuable contribution to the field.