FIGURE 15.3 Point-to-point contact.

We now briefly consider point-to-surface contact, illustrated in Figure 15.5 using a triangular element. Here, target node t3 is connected via a triangular element to contactor nodes c1 and c2. The stiffness matrix of the element is written as k([g1−δ1],

in which g1−δ1 is the gap between nodes t1 and c1, and the geometric