Variational–hemivariational inequality for a class of dynamic nonsmooth frictional contact problems

In this paper, a dynamic frictional contact problem for viscoelastic materials with long memory is studied. The contact is modeled by a multivalued normal damped response condition with the Clarke generalized gradient of a locally Lipschitz superpotential and the friction is described by a version of the Coulomb law of dry friction with the friction bound depending on the regularized normal stress. The weak formulation of the contact problem is a history-dependent variational–hemivariational inequality for the velocity. A result on the unique weak solvability to this inequality is proved through a recent contribution on evolutionary subdifferential inclusions and a fixed point approach.