Well-Posedness of nonconvex degenerate sweeping process via unconstrained evolution problems

Abstract The main concern of this paper is the study of degenerate sweeping process involving uniform prox-regular sets via an unconstrained differential inclusion by showing that the sets of solutions of the two problems coincide. This principle of reduction to unconstrained evolution problem can be seen as a penalization of the subdifferential of the distance function. Using this reduction technique, an existence and uniqueness result of a Lipschitz perturbed version of the degenerate sweeping process is proved in the finite dimensional setting. An application is given to quasistatic unilateral dynamics in nonsmooth mechanics where the moving set is described by a finite number of inequalities. We provide sufficient verifiable conditions ensuring both the prox-regularity and the Lipschitz continuity with respect to the Hausdorff distance of the moving set.