The following points are important for beam-to-beam contact modeling.
Use pipe elements (PIPE289) to model polymer tube structures as line bodies. Currently, none of the hyperelastic material models can be modeled by beam elements (BEAM188, BEAM189).
When internal beam contact is involved, set KEYOPT(3) = 2 for the contact elements to capture any internal crossing and parallel beam-to-beam contact. In this example, the crossing contact type dominates between the coil and the tube; the parallel contact type may potentially occur during New-Raphson iterations.
Set KEYOPT(14) = 2 for the contact elements to allow each contact detection point to interact with multiple target segments simultaneously.