C⁰ Discontinuous Galerkin Methods for a Kirchhoff Plate Contact Problem

Discontinuous Galerkin (DG) methods are considered for solving a plate contact problem, which is a 4th-order elliptic variational inequality of second kind. Numerous $C^0$ DG schemes for the Kirchhoff plate bending problem are extended to the variational inequality. Properties of the DG methods, such as consistency and stability, are studied, and optimal order error estimates are derived. A numerical example is presented to show the performance of the DG methods; the numerical convergence orders confirm the theoretical prediction.