PDEA Seminar: Inertial evolution of non-linear viscoelastic solids in the face of (self-)collision

Abstract: The talk discusses existence theory for collisions of (visco-)elastic bulk solids which are undergoing inertial evolution. In particular, our approach for contact is based only on the assumption of non-interpenetration of matter. Most other theories for contact of elastic solids include some phenomenological assumptions, which we do not need in our approach.

We are able to show existence of weak solutions including contact with an obstacle or with the solid itself, for arbitrarily large times and large deformations. Furthermore, our construction includes a characterization of the contact force which obeys conservation of momentum and an energy balance. This contact force is a vector-valued surface measure acting in the normal direction, and is constructed as a consequence of the non-interpenetration of matter.

This is a joint work with Giovanni Gravina and Malte Kampschulte.

This is a seminar in the PDEs and Applications seminar series