Debonding problems generally require highly refined meshes to capture the cohesive zone stress and deformation fields accurately. Also, for debonding problems involving soft substrates (such as hyperelastic materials), nonconvergence and severe local mesh distortion near the debonding region often occur.

Modeling debonding within the nonlinear adaptivity framework can mitigate such problems. The nonlinear adaptivity cohesive zone material criterion (NLADAPTIVE,ADD,CONTACT,CZM) can be used to control the mesh refinement at the contact interface where the cohesive zone material is active.

Nonlinear adaptivity for debonding is available for contact elements (CONTAnnn) only. Interface elements (INTERnnn) are not supported.

For more information, see Contact-Based Criterion in the Nonlinear Adaptivity Analysis Guide.