negative contact pressure in stress analysis results?

[jasonrecords]

If you get negative contact pressure in teh stress analysis results, what is that telling you as opposed to postive contact pressure?

[raviburla]

Hi,

The contact pressures result from the contacting forces between two entities (typically faces). Contact forces are developed to ensure that the equilibrium conditions are satisfied. Let us say that there are two faces in contact, the contact forces will be opposite to the face normal of each face (therefore positive contact pressure) when these faces are trying to “push each other”. The contact forces will be along the face normal of each face (and therefore negative contact pressure) if they are trying to “pull away from each other” but the contact conditions are such that the faces are not allowed to do that – for example bonded contacting condition.

Please let us know if you have more questions/concerns.

Thanks,

Ravi Burla (Autodesk)