Simulation of sliding friction of spherical rigid bodies subject to multiple impact collisions

This work investigates the dynamics of spherical rigid bodies subject to multiple impact collisions and sliding friction. The contact problem is solved with a mixed dual formulation based on an augmented Lagrangian technique. The equations of motion and the multiple impact collisions are solved in the frame of the nonsmooth generalized-$$\alpha $$ time integrator scheme. In order to consider the mechanical and geometrical properties of the spheres, a rigid body formulation with translational and rotational degrees of freedom is implemented. Finally, in order to assess the numerical performance of the proposed methodology, a multiple impact collisions motion of three spheres over a rigid plane is studied. © 2021, The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.