AbstractA solution procedure for the analysis of planar and axisymmetric‐contact‐ problems involving sticking, frictional sliding and separation under large deformations is presented. The contact conditions are imposed using the total potential of the contact forces with the geometric compatibility conditions, which leads to contact system matrices and force vectors. Some key aspects of the procedure are the contact matrices, the use of distributed tractions on the contact segments for deciding whether a node is sticking, sliding or releasing and the evaluation of the nodal point contact forces. The solutions to various sample problems are presented to demonstrate the applicability of the algori