Use one of the following contact algorithms: augmented Lagrangian or penalty function (KEYOPT(2) = 0 or 1). Modeling wear with the pure Lagrangian contact algorithm can result in convergence problems and is not recommended.

Use very small substeps so that the wear increment is small. A large wear increment can abruptly change the contact status and cause convergence difficulties.

In general, you should use asymmetric contact to model wear on only one side of the contact interface. However, you can use symmetric contact if wear is desired on both sides of the interface. In this case, define contact elements on both sides of the interface and use the option for the nodal-stress-based wear calculation (C5 of Archard wear model = 1 on TBDATA) to achieve better results.

Simulating a large amount of wear can result in severe mesh distortions. In such cases, use the wear-based nonlinear adaptivity criterion to improve the mesh quality via mesh morphing.