Contact definition - I am totally lost

[kmeldfreyssinet]

Hi,

I am just starting to try Simulation Mechanical and right in the beginning I am confused.

I am trying to run analysis of simple assembly (it dose not represent anything).

I managed to get threw import and mesh generation although it dose not want to work as shown in tutorial.

I have however huge problem with contact. I am trying to define bonded contact (for the beginning). But for some reason I can not gent it working. Only what gets connected apart from two nodes that match exactly.

I am finding information about something called "smart bonding" but I have not found any particular example so far, nor information where this function is in Simulation.

Could you point me in the right direction on how to properly define contacts?

In attachment there is my sample model. As you can see in results displacement is nothing like it should be for bonded contact.

Cris.

[Anonymous]

In the Tree on the left hand side, the second to last entry specifies the type of contact you want.  You can specify the default (which it will use if there is no explicit contact definition), or you can pick two surfaces or edges, and specify a type of contact pair different from the default, which it will use instead of the default.  If the default is Bonded, the software will only bond the surfaces when the entities are touching each other (0 gap in between).

I noticed you had a welded contact defined.  Welded will act like a real weld and only connect the ends of the surfaces together.  In orde to illustrate, f you think of 2 pieces of bread with peanut butter in between them.

Bonded - The peanut butter is the connection, both faces of the bread will be joined together.

Welded - The peanut butter is never connected.  Instead, the crusts of the bread on the edges will be connected.  Hence the bread slices will be free to separate in the middle (which is what the simulation did in your case).

Take a look at the attached zip file.

Hope this helps

[arizawilmer]

Hello....

Welcome to the software.....When i start to use the software i found very useful (i work in the design of steel structures) the video about welding simulation. They define and show the differences between contact elements(the basic contacts.

This weekend I'm going to try to check the file and give you more exact answer.

Cheers

[kmeldfreyssinet]

Hi,

thanks guys.

So far I managed to make some progress, although still not able to perform really useful simulation.

As for contacts I managed to make them work.

Cris.