Home About Software Services Blog Contact

All Posts News and Updates Technical Blogs Tips and Tricks Software

Sai Kosaraju 13 hours ago 5 min read

Contact In FEA - What Is It And How

Should It Be Implemented?
Contacts are an essential part of model de nitions in a multibody analysis. These
problems are commonly encountered in engineering scenarios such as
assemblies with moving parts like seals, gears, pins, punches, rollers, bearings etc.
Once contact occurs between two bodies, they can interact in different ways.
Bonded, friction, frictionless, no separation, rough contact are a few examples of
how contact interactions can progress. Because of the relative motion and
change in contact conditions between the moving parts, the stiffness of the
whole assembly changes, introducing nonlinearity into the analysis.

Introduction

The surfaces between the two bodies involved in the contact interactions are
distinguished as primary and secondary surfaces in the Abaqus FEA software.
Each contact pair is composed of a primary and secondary surface.

Primary surface: Contact behavior is de ned and controlled typically by the

primary surface. It is the surface that initiates contact with another body
and is responsible for generating contact forces and reactions. It is de ned
in the section of the input le where contact properties and behavior are
speci ed.
Secondary surface: This interacts with the primary surface and experiences
contact forces and reactions. The secondary surface is not responsible for
initiating contact, but it merely responds to the contact behavior de ned
on the respective primary surface.

The contact between multiple components in a mechanical assembly can

transpire in multiple ways as demonstrated in the gure below:

1. Surface to surface
2. Surface to edge
3. Edge to edge
4. Vertex to surface

When setting up contact problems in Abaqus, you'll typically need to de ne

contact pairs (unless using the general contact algorithm), specify contact
behavior (friction, separation, etc.), assign appropriate contact properties, and
apply appropriate boundary conditions to simulate the desired contact behavior
accurately. In Abaqus/Standard, we have three ways for de ning contact:

General Contact Algorithm

General contact is speci ed as a part of model de nition, which allows simple

contact de nitions with very few restrictions on the surfaces involved. This uses
robust tracking algorithms to ensure proper contact conditions are enforced
ef ciently. It has a simple interface and allows for highly automated contact
de nition. However, it is computationally very expensive because of this. Self-
contact and multibody contacts can be speci ed using a single de nition.

The simplest way to de ne contact is to specify self-contact for a default

unnamed, all-inclusive surface which is automatically de ned by Abaqus. This
way, all the regions that can potentially come into contact in an assembly are
enveloped into the general contact domain. This default domain encompasses all
exterior element faces and all analytical rigid surfaces and it is de ned only once
at the beginning of the analysis. The computational performance and robustness
of this algorithm can be improved by just adding speci c contact inclusions and
exclusions at assembly level in the general contact domain.

Contact Pairs

Speci ed using pairwise contact interactions for certain contact surfaces. The
contact pair is de ned by indicating the surfaces that may come into contact
during an analysis. Be aware that extending these contact surfaces to include
surface faces and nodes that may never come into contact results in signi cant
memory usage, which increases the computational cost. Every contact pair must
be speci ed with an appropriate interaction property. This may result in ef cient
analysis if there are only a few contacting pairs in the model.

This differs from general contact in terms of user interface, default numerical
settings and the available options and can be used in conjunction with general
contact algorithms. It is sometimes useful to de ne surface pairs with complex
interaction de nitions using the contact pair algorithm while letting others self-
resolve with the general contact algorithm.

Contact Elements

This is rarely used, and the contact is speci ed though elements or slide lines.
Abaqus has a library of contact elements such as GAPCYL, GAPSPHER, CAXAn
and DGAP, which can be used based on the model requirements. Heat ow in a
discontinuous piping system is an example where contact elements should be
utilized.

Common Dif culties While Modeling Contact

It is important to note that contact problems can be computationally intensive,

especially for large-scale simulations with many contact interactions. Proper
meshing, convergence criteria, and solution techniques should be considered to
ensure accurate and ef cient simulations. Some of the things to think about
while modelling contact are brie y explained here.

Initial Overclosure

This occurs when the two contacting surfaces overlap in the model at the
beginning of analysis. This can be caused by poor CAD modelling, mesh
discretization or intended overlap for interference ts as shown in gure below.

Initial overclosure can be resolved in two ways: with strain-free adjustment or with
interference ts. In strain free adjustment, the nodes on the secondary surface are
moved until the overclosure is removed without any stresses and strains
generated in the elements. This is appropriate for unintended overlaps occurring
due to CAD modeling and mesh discretization.

The initial overlap can also be treated as interference t for contacting surfaces.
The interference between the surface pair is gradually removed in the rst step of
the analysis resulting in realistic stresses and strains in the deformed geometries.
This can be speci ed only in the rst step of a Standard analysis in Abaqus.

Initial Gap

This occurs when there is gap between the contacting surfaces as the beginning
of the analysis. an initial gap can lead to rigid body motion of components during
the analysis, which will, in turn, lead to convergence issues. Numerical singularity
warning messages and very large displacements indicate the unconstrained
motion in a static analysis. Large initial gaps should be avoided whenever possible
in the model and small initial gaps can be removed using strain free adjustments
of the elements. If large initial gaps are inevitable in the model, the contact
stabilization option, which introduces arti cial damping in the analysis, can be
used.

Mesh Quality

Poor mesh quality can lead to roughly de ned surfaces causing undesirable
behaviors such as excessive penetration, unexpected opening, and inaccurate
force application between the contacting surfaces. This can cause
nonconvergence and termination of the analysis.

When the meshes on the primary and secondary surfaces do not match, the
primary nodes can grossly penetrate the secondary surface without any
resistance as shown in the above gure. This problem can be alleviated by
re ning the mesh on secondary surfaces. Also, using surface-to-surface contact
can resist the penetration of primary nodes into the secondary surface. Coarser
meshes on two contact surfaces with dissimilar curvatures can also lead to
contact interactions occurring entirely within the bounds of a single element as
shown in the gure below. This will lead to unreliable and unrealistic results as the
primary node penetrates the secondary surface until it encounters a secondary
node. Re ning the mesh to spread the contact interaction over multiple element
faces can help while modelling contact surfaces with dissimilar curvatures.
However, unless perfectly matching meshes are used, local oscillations may be
observed in the contact stresses and pressures, even in the re ned models.

Final Thoughts

Contacts are an essential part of model de nition in FEA, which can lead to
nonlinearity and convergence issues. These problems can be computationally
expensive for large-scale simulations with multiple contact interactions. Hence,
Proper meshing, convergence criteria, and solution techniques should be
considered to ensure accurate and ef cient simulations. Hopefully this article has
given a good overview of different ways of de ning contact and overcoming
commonly observed issues in a multibody analysis.

We’re always here to help, so if you have questions about contact in your models,
or just FEA in general, don’t hesitate to reach out!

Engineering Abaqus Debugging Elements FEA Learning Simulation

Contact

Technical Blogs

229 views 1

Recent Posts See All

3D Meshing in Abaqus Stress And Strain - What Strain Tensors In FEA -

CAE Are They And What Is… What Are They And How…

373 3 515 2 1,297 6

Software Services Home

3DEXPERIENCE Platform FEA Services

About
FEA Software CFD Services

CFD Software Blog

Emag Software
37283 Huron River Dr. Contact
New Boston, MI 48164 Optimization Software

[email protected]
(313) 766-0699

Copyright © 2020 Fidelis Engineering Associates