This Contact Wizard leads you through the process of manually creating contact pairs. The wizard supports rigid-flexible (with optional pilot node) and flexible-flexible contact, and supports both surface-to-surface and node-to-surface configurations. The Contact Wizard also supports surface-based constraint contact pairs.

To use the Contact Wizard, access the Contact Manager Toolbar and click the Contact Wizard icon. The wizard steps you through setting up the contact analysis. Below is an example of the screens you will see.

Figure 2.2: Example of a Contact Wizard Dialog

The Contact Wizard remains unavailable (dimmed) if you haven't meshed any portion of your model. If you wish to create a rigid-flexible model, mesh only those parts of the model which will be used as flexible contact surfaces (do not mesh the rigid target surfaces) before launching the wizard. If you wish to create a flexible-flexible model, mesh all parts of the model which will be used as contact surfaces (including target surfaces) before launching the wizard.

You can specify target and contact surfaces using lines, areas, volumes, selected set of nodes, or node components. Note that the wizard allows you to choose more than one area for the target and contact surfaces, allowing multiple areas to form a single contact surface. If you specify a rigid target surface, you will then have the option to define a pilot node for that contact pair. (The pilot node step is mandatory if you define a surface-based constraint contact pair by picking the Pilot Node Only option.)

After you specify the target and contact surfaces, you can specify properties of the contact pair (real constants and KEYOPTs) before creating the contact pair. When you finish specifying all the required data, click the Create button to create the contact and target element types, a unique real constant set with the real constant values, and the elements that make up the contact and target surfaces.