Chapter 17: Contact

15.0 Release

Introduction to Mechanical
APDL (MAPDL)
1 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. March 30, 2015
 Contact
Simulating the effects of contact between the surfaces of meshed bodies
requires the use of contact elements. Unless contact elements are placed on the
external surfaces of meshed bodies, they will be free to interfere and/or pass
completely through each other.

Typically, contact elements on

surfaces are used to prevent
those surfaces from passing Standard Contact
through each other while
prong
allowing them to separate.
This is termed Standard
Contact. An example might be receptacle
determining stresses produced
in a prong and receptacle in a
snap insertion buckle during
insertion.

2 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. March 30, 2015

 Contact
Other types of contact include bonded, in which members are joined at surfaces
and not allowed to separate or slide with respect to each other. Yet another is
pilot node contact, in which nodes on surfaces are joined to a single pilot node
which does not necessarily reside on the surface. This allows application of net
load on a surface at a single (and possibly remote) point.

Pilot Node Contact

Bonded Contact

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 Contact
A contact pair consists of two sets of elements – contact elements and target
elements. These must have the same real constant ID number in order to interact
with each other.
• Contact is established when contact points associated with contact elements
pass through the faces of target elements on the target surface.
• There may be unintended consequences in contact behavior depending on
which surface is chosen to be the contact and which the target.
• It is possible to define “symmetric contact” in which both target and contact
elements reside on both surfaces.
Contact Surface Target Surface

Target Surface Contact Surface

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 . . . Contact Symmetry
The following guidelines can be beneficial for proper manual selection of contact
surfaces for Asymmetric behavior:
• If a convex surface comes into contact with a flat or concave surface, the flat or concave
surface should be the Target surface.
• If one surface has a coarse mesh and the other a fine mesh, the surface with the coarse
mesh should be the Target surface.
• If one surface is stiffer than the other, the stiffer surface should be the Target surface.
• If one surface is higher order and the other is lower order, the lower order surface
should be the Target surface.
• If one surface is larger than the other, the larger surface should be the Target surface.

Note: The ANSYS Mechanical (using Workbench) default contact is auto

asymmetric.

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 Contact
The contact pinball (a spherical boundary surrounding each contact detection
point) is used to differentiate between near and far-field contact, which helps with
computational efficiency.
Contact Status:
Inside pinball = near-field contact
Outside pinball = far-field contact
Allows the solver to more efficiently process contact calculations.

Pinball radius

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 Contact
There are several uses for the Pinball Region:
• Standard contact: Provides computational efficiency in contact calculations, by
differentiating “near” and “far” open contact when searching for which possible
elements can contact each other.
• Bonded/no separation contact: Allows bonded and no separation contact to be
“active” when gaps are present (within the pinball radius).
• MPC (multi-point constraint) contact: Affects how many nodes will be included in the
MPC equations.

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 Contact
When creating contact elements one must ensure that all faces which may come
into contact have contact/target elements on them.

Contact elements
Target elements

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 Contact
Creating contact elements (two ways in MAPDL)
1. APDL (direct generation using ESURF command)
• Define contact and target elements types (ET command)
• Specify keyoptions and real constants to modify contact behavior as
needed for specific application
• Activate element attributes (TYPE, REAL) associated with the elements you
want to create on the surface
• Select nodes on faces of underlying solid mesh onto which elements are to
be created
• Use ESURF command to create elements
2. Contact Wizard

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 Contact
Example: Creating contact elements with APDL

Define contact and target attributes

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 Contact
Creating contact elements with the Contact Wizard. Use the Contact Manager to
bring up the Contact Wizard

1: the Contact Manager

2 button is at upper right
corner of the GUI

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 Contact
The Contact Manager leads you through the process step by step with prompts

After picking
the target
surface,
choose
“Next”

After picking
the contact
surface,
choose
“Next”

12 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. March 30, 2015

 Contact
The Contact Manager leads you through the process step by step with prompts
After defining
contact
surfaces it is
often
necessary to
define
optional
settings

13 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. March 30, 2015

 Contact
The Contact Manager leads you through the process step by step with prompts

After defining optional setting (if

necessary) you may then create the
contact pair. The shared real
constant ID number associated
with the contact pair is reported in
case you want to modify it later.

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 Contact
Editing contact pair properties/options…

A Widget allowing numerous

modifications to contact
options may be accessed
through the Properties button.

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 Contact
Entering CNCHECK on the command line provides a detailed summary of contact
properties

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 Contact
Post processing contact results quantities may be done with the Contact Manager

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 Contact
Begin Workshop 17a (Bonded Contact)

Bonded contact
between plates
where they overlap

Fixed at
Tip nodes
base
coupled in UZ

Net force
applied to tip

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 Contact
Begin Workshop 17b (Standard Contact)

Prong

Receptacle

Prong UY{t}

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 Contact
Begin Workshop 17c (Compare CERIG with MPC contact using a pilot node)
1) CERIG (“constraint equation rigid region”)
2) Bonded MPC contact using a target pilot node

1) CERIG 2) MPC contact

Slaves Contact
elements
(purple)

Master
Pilot
Constraint 45⁰ twist node
45⁰ twist
equations applied to (target
applied to
free end element)
free end
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 BLANK SPACER

21 © 2015 ANSYS, Inc. March 30, 2015