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Release notes are available for the following releases of CONTACT:

CONTACT Release v12.2
CONTACT Release v12.1
CONTACT Release v11.1
CONTACT Release v10.2
CONTACT Release v10.1
CONTACT Release v9.1

Release Notes for version 12.2: June, 2012

CONTACT v12.2 includes the following modifications with respect to earlier versions of the program:
  • Improved capabilities for reproducing measured creep force curves, via a model for the third body layer and velocity dependent friction laws.
  • Interesting results with respect to the effects of velocity dependent friction in transient simulations.
  • Substantial improvements with respect to the ease of use and documentation of the program.
For more information refer to the full release notes (pdf-format). The first item is presented in the paper [Vollebregt2012b]. The second item is the subject of [Vollebregt2012a].

Release Notes for version 12.1: January, 2012

CONTACT v12.1 includes the following modifications with respect to earlier versions of the program:
  • Achieved a 100-fold speedup for solving larger normal contact problems.
  • Improved the documentation of the viscoelastic part of CONTACT and provided an example of its use.
  • Distinguished free and premium features in the software, the latter requiring a valid license file.
For more information refer to the full release notes (pdf-format).

Release Notes for version 11.1: April, 2011

CONTACT v11.1 includes the following modifications with respect to earlier versions of the program:
  • Added a full wheel-rail example: S1002 on UIC60, conform the Manchester benchmark problem.
  • Added provisions for investigation of more detailed friction laws, such as velocity dependent friction.
  • Made several performance improvements. In total, many smaller test cases can now be solved in 3 to 30 msec per case.
  • Improved the CONTACT GUI such that it works on the Linux platform as well.
For more information refer to the full release notes (pdf-format).

Release Notes for version 10.2: October, 2010

CONTACT v10.2 includes the following modifications with respect to earlier versions of the program:
  • Added an installer for the Windows platform, and a plain graphical user interface, the CONTACT GUI.
  • Added detailed control over the undeformed distance of the two bodies, and an example for transient rolling problems.
  • Implemented a new iterative solver "SteadyGS" for the steady state rolling problem.
  • Resolved a problem in the calculation of problems for bodies with dissimilar materials.
For more information refer to the full release notes (pdf-format). The SteadyGS solver is presented in the paper [Vollebregt2010c].

Release Notes for version 10.1: January, 2010

CONTACT v10.1 includes the following modifications with respect to earlier versions of the program:
  • Added the FASTSIM algorithm for quickly approximating the tangential stresses.
  • Speed-up of the computations using parallelisation on multi-core PC's.
  • Improved input-options for the subsurface stress calculation, with an example and a plot-routine.
  • Allow for comments in and improved handling of the user input file, provide more control over the progress output.
For more information refer to the full release notes (pdf-format).

Release Notes for version 9.1: October, 2009

CONTACT v9.1 includes the following modifications with respect to earlier versions of the program:
  • Improved leading edge boundary condition, avoiding spurious oscillations when larger time steps are used.
  • Allow larger problems to be solved, by dynamic memory allocation and matrix-free implementation of the solution algorithms.
  • Improved flexibility of the program, by introducing the experiment name; improved error-handling with respect to the user input.
  • Improved the internal structure and extendability of the program, a.o. by introducing a (Fortran90) hierarchical data-structure.
The first two items are described in the paper [Vollebregt2009a].