Simulation of contact between subsea pipeline and trawl gear using mortar-based isogeometric analysis

Abstract

This paper focuses on the application of mortar-based isogeometric analysis

to predict contact between subsea pipelines and trawl gear. The contact constraints are satisfied exactly with the augmented Lagrangian method, and treated with a mortar- based approach combined with a simplified integration method to avoid segmentation of the contact surfaces. The spatial discretization of the deformable body is performed

with NURBS and C0-continuous Lagrange polynomial elements. The numerical examples

demonstrate that isogeometric surface discretization delivers more accurate and robust

predictions of the response compared to Lagrange discretizations.