Abstract
This paper describes the design of a new hierarchical contact serach algorithm for the isogeometric analysis. Isogeometric analysis is a kind of finite element analysis, using NURBS, which is the standard basis functions for representing arbitrary shapes in the CAD field, as its basis functions. The proposed contact search algorithm, which mainly deals with global search process, utilizes a hierarchical AABB tree that is based on knot spans and constructed from the corresponding control points, along with adding newly generated virtual control points by repeeatedly inserting new knot values. The design of the proposed algorithm is thoroughly described and its memory usage and computational intensity is quantitatively investigated.
