Lecture 2:

Interface Treatments
16.0 Release

ANSYS Mechanical
Advanced Connections
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Chapter Overview
In this Lecture, we will discuss tools available for adjusting the Interface between
contact and target surfaces to simulate more advanced relationships
The following will be covered in this Lecture:
A. Rigid Body Motion

B. Contact Surface Offset

C. Workshop 2A - Interference Fit
D. Contact Stabilization Damping
E. Workshop 2B - Contact Stabilization
F. MPC Interface Options
G. Time Step Controls
H. Friction
I.
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Workshop 2C -Friction
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A. Rigid Body Motion

Rigid body motion can occur in the beginning of a static analysis due to the fact that an initial
contact condition is not well established.

Fn
Contact
Target
The finite element method cannot reconcile rigid-body motion in a static structural
analysis.
- If an initial gap is present and a force based loading is applied, initial contact may not be
established, and one part may fly away relative to another part.

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... Rigid Body Motion

Fn
Pinball Radius

Contact
Target

For linear contact (bonded or no separation)behavior, a large enough Pinball Radius

may allow any gap between Contact and Target surfaces to be ignored.
For nonlinear contact (frictional or frictionless) behavior, an initial gap is not
automatically ignored.
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B. Contact Surface Offset

To alleviate situations where a negligible gap exists between contact and target
surfaces, there are two options available under Interface Treatment to internally
offset the Contact surfaces by a specified amount.

On the left is the original model (mesh). The top red mesh is the body associated with the
Contact surfaces

The Contact surface can be mathematically offset by a certain amount, as shown on the right
in light green. This adjustment will allow for initial contact to be established.

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... Contact Surface Offset

Important notes on Contact Offset Feature:

This is a mathematical adjustment only. Nodes and elements are not altered.
The position of the contact surface is interpreted as being offset by
specified amount.
It has the effect of a change in geometry at the contact interface since a rigid
region will exist between the actual mesh and the offset contact surface.
It is intended for applications where this adjustment is small enough to have a
negligible effect on overall results.
It has proven to be a useful tool to establish initial contact in static analyses without
having to modify the CAD geometry.

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... Contact Surface Offset

In the Details view, the user can select Adjust to Touch or Add Offset

Adjusted to Touch - Mechanical determines what contact offset amount is needed to

close the gap and establish initial contact. Note that the contact status must be near
field open (size of the Pinball Region must envelop the gap) for this to work. If all
contact elements are far-field open, no adjustment will be made.

Add Offset allows the user to specify a

positive or negative distance to offset
the contact surface. A positive value will
tend to close a gap while a negative value
will tend to open a gap.
This can also be used to model initial interference
fits without modifying the geometry. Model
the geometry in just-touching position and
change the positive distance value to the
interference value.
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... Contact Surface Offset

Add Offset, Ramped Effects - Applies the
interference gradually over several substeps within a
load step.

Useful to enhance convergence for challenging

interference problems.
Offset

Ramped
Substeps
Time

Add Offset, No Ramping - Applies the interference

all at once in first substep.
Offset

Stepped
Substeps

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Time

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C. Workshop
Please Refer to your Workshop Supplement
W2A: Interference Fit

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Contact Stabilization Damping

Rigid body motion often can occur in the beginning of a static analysis due to the fact
that the initial contact condition is not well established.

Fn

Ft
Contact

Target

Fdt
Fdn

Contact Stabilization introduces a viscous damping traction proportional to but opposite

to the relative pseudo velocities between the two surfaces along contact normal and/or
tangential directions.
Where:

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FDMN = real constant scaling factor in normal direction (default =1.0)

FDMT = real constant scaling factor in tangential direction (default = 0.001)
Vn, Vt = pseudo velocity
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Contact Stabilization Damping

Enhanced Contact Stabilization Scheme
Prior to this release, automatic contact damping was activated based on the
contact status of the entire contact pair in the previous substep.
Now, automatic damping is activated based on the contact status of the current
iteration, and damping is deactivated if any contact detection point has a closed
status.

In addition, the default damping coefficient has been reduced, minimizing the
risk of degraded accuracy while still providing effective stabilization.
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... Contact Stabilization Damping

Contact stabilization is inactive by default.
As an exception, it will be activated automatically if ALL of the following conditions are
met:
Gauss point or surface projection based detection.
AND the entire contact pair is in near field open status.
AND a geometric penetration is detected at any contact nodal point, despite the initially open
status.*

* This seems like a contradiction,

but it can happen on curved
surfaces with tight clearances and
with a coarse mesh that does not
capture the curvature of contact
and target surfaces accurately.
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 Contact Stabilization Damping

Stabilization Damping Factor is applied in the contact
normal direction and it is valid only for nonlinear
contact (frictionless, rough and frictional contacts).
If this factor is 0 (default), the damping is activated
under the conditions mentioned previously and only in
the first load step
If its value is greater than 0, the damping is activated
for all load steps.
Additional controls are available via KEYOPT(15) in a
command object.

Tangential damping factor is not directly exposed in

Mechanical, but can be manually defined via RMODIF in
a command object.
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 Contact Stabilization Damping

Note that the Energy introduced into the model by Contact Stabilization Damping is
artificial.
It can alleviate convergence problems, but it can also affect solution accuracy if the
applied stabilization energy generated by the damping forces are too large.
In most cases, the program automatically activates and deactivates contact stabilization
damping and estimates reasonable damping forces.
However, it is a good practice to check the stabilization energy and reaction forces.

The contact stabilization energy can be post processed via the ETABLE command using
the AENE label in a command object. This should be compared to element potential
energy via SENE label on ETABLE.
For example:

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ETABLE,AE,AENE

!save artificial energies associated with stabilization

ETABLE,SE,SENE

!save strain energies to element table

SSUM

!sum all element energies for comparison

PRETAB,AE,SE

!print element table values

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Contact Stabilization Damping

Example: Consider a fixed pin interfacing with a hole in plate with initial radial
clearance and under a force based load
Stabilization captures localized stress distribution more accurately than Adjust to Touch
Conventional Adjust to Touch

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Contact Stabilization Damping

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Contact Stabilization Damping

Contact Stabilization can be more challenging to converge as compared to adjustto-touch option. Note also, it introduces some artificial energy into the model.
Conventional Adjust to Touch

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Contact Stabilization Damping

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Contact Stabilization Damping

Example: Consider a hyperelastic seal against a hard surface
Conventional Adjust to Touch

Mathematical adjustment to close gap

causes rigid region to exist

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Contact Stabilization Damping

No Gap

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E. Workshops
Please refer to your Workshop Supplement
W2B: Contact Stabilization

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F. MPC Interface Options

MPC is a true linear contact for small-deflection
applications
When convergence is difficult switching to MPC is
an attractive alternative to changing the contact
stiffness.
MPC contact prevents artificial stiffness when gaps
exist between curved surfaces. (Another
alternative is to use joints)
Ideal for shell-solid, shell-shell, and beam-shell
contacts
A caveat is that MPC is the most sensitive contact
type to overconstraint, so avoid it when there are
other contacts or boundary conditions with shared
topology!
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Gap between bonded parts

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... MPC Interface Options

With MPC Formulation, there are different Constraint Types available to address
unique challenges that can arise when using CEs (constraint equations) to connect
entities together.

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Constraint Type options only appear in Details Window when there are Rotational DOFs
in the MPC relationship (i.e. MPC contact involving shell and/or beam elements)

Target Normal, Couple U to ROT (default in WB-Mechanical) is sufficient for most

applications

Note, the typical MPC equation listed below establishes a relationship between the
rotational DOF of node 6212 on one surface body edge with displacement DOFs on
adjacent surface

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... MPC Interface Options

- Target Normal, Uncouple U to ROT creates CEs that separate the rotational and
displacement DOFs into separate equations to improve results for special
applications to remove artificial stiffness at the connection.

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... MPC Interface Options

For example, consider the case of two surface body
edges connected together with MPCs

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The default, Target Normal, Couple U to ROT, creates too many constraints, causing an
artificial stiffness at the connection and resulting in a discontinuity of stress and strain
distribution that should not be there

Target Normal, Uncouple U to ROT produces expected results

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... MPC Interface Options

Inside Pinball, Couple U to ROT allows contact detection
regardless of element normal direction

MPCs created with Default based on beam

element normal direction
Inside Pinball, Couple U to ROT option
properly creates CEs using nodes around entire
perimeter of shell edge, regardless of beam
element normal direction
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Beam Normal
Direction

This option is especially helpful for unique applications of

connecting a line body edge with a shell or solid face or edge
Shell elements

Beam Normal
Direction

Shell elements

G. Time Step Controls

Time Step Controls offers an additional layer of convergence enhancement that allows
bisections and adjustments to time step size based on changes in contact behavior.
This choice is displayed only for nonlinear contact:

Frictionless
Rough
Frictional

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 Time Step Controls

By default, changes in contact behavior do not influence automatic time stepping.

Appropriate for most analyses

Bisections triggered by contact status change might be an unnecessary detriment to overall run
time efficiency.

In the example below, there is no benefit to reducing the time step because of the contact
status change (from closed to open). Hence, the default is appropriate.

Step 2

Step 1

Status = Closed
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Status = Closed
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Status = Open-near field

 Time Step Controls

Automatic Bisection - Contact behavior is reviewed at the end of each substep to
determine whether excessive penetration or drastic changes in contact status have
occurred. If so, the current substep is re-evaluated using a bisected time
increment (reduced by half).
In the example below, automatic bisection might enhance convergence when a
localized contact status change results in a dramatic change in the stiffness response
of the overall structure.

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Use auto time step

for contact status
change in this
region only.

 Time Step Controls

Predict for Impact - Same as the Automatic Bisection option except that this option
also predicts the minimal time increment needed to detect future changes in
contact status in a full transient dynamic analysis.

Recommended if dynamic impact is anticipated.

Substep 1

Substep 2
Contact missed
due to coarse
time step
Substep 3
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Time step is auto

decreased to
capture the contact
status change

 Time Step Controls

Use Impact Constraints: - A Newmark method is used to achieve a more accurate
energy balance at the contact interface.

Helpful for high impact transient dynamic problems where inertia effects are important.
Applicable to situations where the energy created from a local contact penetration at time
of impact exceeds the total potential energy of the original system at time zero.

Can be more efficient than the Predict for Impact option presented on previous slide.

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H. Frictional Contact Options

In general, the tangential or sliding behavior of two contacting bodies may be
frictionless or involve friction.

Frictionless behavior allows the bodies to slide relative to one another without any resistance.
When friction is included, shear forces can develop between the two bodies.
Frictional contact may be used with small-deflection or large-deflection analyses

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 Frictional Contact Options

Friction dissipates energy, and is therefore a path-dependent behavior.

The loading must be applied in the same manner as it occurs on the physical parts.
Time steps must be small for good accuracy.
True displacement path
Small time steps

A
Coarse time steps

Note that, unlike for plasticity, auto time stepping does not take into account the size of
the frictional response increment.
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 Frictional Contact Options

Physical friction is a complex phenomenon that is a function of:

The contacting materials (including lubricants).

Surface roughness.
Temperature.
Relative velocity of the bodies.

The complex mechanisms involved in friction can only be mathematically

approximated.

In fact, a single friction test, run at low speed with constant pressure, will frequently display a
fairly erratic force-displacement behavior:

u
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 Frictional Contact Options

Friction is accounted for with Coulombs Law:

F t a n g en t i a l m F n o r m a l
Where: m =coefficient of static friction

Once the tangential force Ftangential exceeds the above value, sliding will occur

Fn

Ft
m Fn
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 Frictional Contact Options

Contact problems involving friction can produce an unsymmetric stiffness matrix.

For example, a 2D gap element will have the following unsymmetric element matrix when
sliding:

However, using an unsymmetric equation solver is more computationally expensive than a

symmetric solver.

For this reason, Mechanical uses a symmetrization algorithm by which most contact problems
involving friction can be solved with symmetrized matrices
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 Frictional Contact Options

Newton-Raphson Option

If you experience convergence difficulties with a

frictional contact involving large sliding, consider
activating the unsymmetric Newton-Raphson Option in
Details of Analysis Settings window.
Unsymmetric option can enhance convergence
Requires more computational time to obtain a
solution per iteration vs a symmetric solver.

Recommend starting with Program Controlled default

and only force Unsymmetric option to improve
convergence as necessary.

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 Frictional Contact Options

For frictional contact, a friction coefficient must be input

A Friction Coefficient m of 0.0 results in

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the same behavior as frictionless

contact
The default contact formulation
is Augmented Lagrange

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 Reviewing Friction Related Results

If frictional contact is present, additional contact output is available

Contact Frictional Stress and Contact Sliding Distance can be reviewed to get a better understanding
of frictional effects

For Contact Status, Sticking vs. Sliding results differentiate which contacting areas are moving

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I. Workshop Contact with Friction

Please refer to your Workshop Supplement for instructions on:
W2C-Contact with Friction

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