In the finite element simulation of problems with contact there arises
the need to change the mesh and continue the simulation on a new mesh.
This is encountered when the mesh has to be changed because the original mesh experiences severe distortion or the mesh is adapted to minimize errors in the solution. In such instances a crucial component is the transfer of data from the old mesh to the new one.
This work proposes a strategy by which such remeshing can be accomplished in the presence of mortar-discretized contact,
focusing in particular on the remapping of contact variables which must occur to make the method robust and efficient.
By splitting the contact stress into normal and tangential components and transferring the normal component as a scalar and the tangential component by parallel transporting on the contact surface an accurate and consistent transfer scheme is obtained. Penalty and augmented Lagrangian formulations are considered. The approach is demonstrated by a number of two and three dimensional numerical examples.
