Numerical analysis for dynamic contact between high‐speed wheel and elastic beam with Coulomb friction

For numerical analysis of the dynamic contact between a high-speed wheel and an elastic beam, the equation of motion of each body is time integrated by a simple ODE solution technique and frictional contact conditions are imposed by the augmented Lagrange multiplier method using the contact errors defined in this work. For the stability of the numerical solution, the velocity and acceleration contact conditions as well as the displacement contact condition are imposed with special consideration for the high-velocity contact point moving on the deformed beam. Especially, it is shown that the Coriolis and centripetal accelerations of the contact point moving rapidly on the deformed beam play crucial roles for the stability of the solution. It is also shown that, for a wheel rolling on a beam with friction, the acceleration constraint in the tangential direction is important for the stability of the solution. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.