Abstract: The rolling contact problem of a visooelastic cylinder is studied in the paper. This problem is governed by a variational inequality equation, (K_g, r-g) ≥ 0 for any r in convex set K⊂Rⁿ. Unlike that in the case of elastic media, the stiffness matrix K is composed of a positive definite matrix and an anti-symmetric matrix. The authors first prove some useful properties about the solution of the equation, and then provide a numerical solution scheme to solve this equation.

Key words: visooelastioity, rolling contact, variational inequality equation