ABSTRACT Accurate and robust modeling of large deformation three‐dimensional contact interaction is an important area of engineering, but it is also challenging from a computational mechanics perspective. This is particularly the case when there is significant interpenetration and evolution of the contact surfaces, such as the case of a relatively rigid body interacting with a highly deformable body. This paper provides a new three‐dimensional large deformation contact approach where the Material Point Method (MPM) is used to represent the deformable material. A new contact detection approach is introduced that checks the interaction of the vertices of the domains associated with each material point with the discretized rigid body. This provides a general and consistent approach without requiring the reconstruction of an additional boundary representation of the deformable body. A new energy‐consistent material point domain updating approach is also introduced that maintains stable simulations under large deformations. The dynamic governing equations allow the trajectory of the rigid body to evolve based on the interaction with the deformable body, and the governing equations are solved within an efficient implicit framework. The performance of the new contact approach is demonstrated on a number of benchmark problems with analytical solutions. The method is also applied to the specific case of soil‐structure interaction, using geotechnical centrifuge experimental data that confirms the veracity of the proposed approach.
Bird et al. (Thu,) studied this question.