Numerical analysis of history-dependent variational–hemivariational inequalities with applications in contact mechanics

This paper is devoted to numerical analysis of history-dependent variational– hemivariational inequalities arising in contact problems for viscoelastic material. We introduce both temporally semi-discrete approximation and fully discrete approximation for the problem, where the temporal integration is approximated by a trapezoidal rule and the spatial variable is approximated by the finite element method. We analyze the discrete schemes and derive error bounds. The results are applied for the numerical solution of a quasistatic contact problem. For the linear finite element method, we prove that the error estimation for the numerical solution is of optimal order under appropriate solution regularity assumptions.