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In this paper, we present a numerical procedure that can be used to model the electro-mechanical coupled behavior of the dielectric actuator domain. The equation describing the electrostatical part is given by the reduced form of the Maxwell equation and the electrostatic potential [1]. The mechanical problem is described by the constitutive equations and equilibrium equations. Using the finite element method, this technique is to divide a whole problem into sub-problems. The complexity of the original problem is therefore reduced by focusing only on the most relevant areas. A finite element analysis is then performed by applying the electrostatic Maxwell pressure as Neumann boundary conditions to compute the displacements. Once the displacement is computed, the electrostatic domain or the conductor is updated. Electrostatic analysis is performed on the updated geometry and the finite element method is then used to determine the change in potential due to geometric perturbations. Once the surface charge densities are known, the new electrostatic Maxwell pressure is computed. The mechanical and electrostatic analysis is repeated until an equilibrium state is computed. The procedure is demonstrated in the paper by the solution of some two-dimensional and three-dimensional problems. (© 2013 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)

The bilateral or unilateral contact problem with Coulomb friction between two elastic bodies is considered [1]. An algorithm is introduced to solve the resulting finite element system by a non-overlapping domain decomposition method [2, 3]. The global problem is transformed to a independant local problems posed in each bodie and a problem posed on the contact surface (the interface problem). The solution is obtained by using a successive approximation method, in each step of this algorithm we solve two intermediate problems the first with prescribed tangential pressure and the second with prescribed normal pressure [8]. Our preconditioner construction is based on the application of the H-matrix technique [6, 7] together with the representation of the H1/2 seminorm by a sum of partial seminorms [4]. (© 2004 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)