A reduced basis method for parametrized variational inequalities applied to contact mechanics

Summary We investigate new developments of the reduced‐basis method for parametrized optimization problems with nonlinear constraints. We propose a reduced‐basis scheme in a saddle‐point form combined with the Empirical Interpolation Method to deal with the nonlinear constraint. In this setting, a primal reduced‐basis is needed for the primal solution and a dual one is needed for the Lagrange multipliers. We suggest to construct the latter using a cone‐projected greedy algorithm that conserves the non‐negativity of the dual basis vectors. The reduction strategy is applied to elastic frictionless contact problems including the possibility of using nonmatching meshes. The numerical examples confirm the efficiency of the reduction strategy.