6.13.1.3.5. Imported Contacts

When your upstream External Model source file includes surface to surface contact, from either solid or shell bodies, an Imported folder appears beneath the Connections parent folder when you open the file in Mechanical. This object is a simple group folder. It contains the child object: Contacts. The data associated with the imported contact is provided through the Worksheet. You can deactivate/active Worksheet entries using the Active selection box in the table or through the right-click context menu.

Supported Analysis Types

Imported contact is supported by the following analysis types:

  • Coupled Field Analyses

  • Harmonic Response

  • Modal

  • Static Structural

  • Transient Structural

  • Steady State Thermal

  • Transient Thermal

Note:  The application imports thermal conductivity data for thermal analyses.

Supported Source File Commands

The application imports the following source file data as contact:

CDB

  • Surface contacts in the form of CONTA173 (source) and CONTA174 (source), CONTA175 (source), and TARGE170 (target) elements.

  • Target elements will usually define the element shape using the element shape flag (column 8) in the EBLOCK section. If not defined, the number of nodes for that target element will be used. The following target element shapes are supported:

    • Linear triangular shape – 6

    • Linear quadrilateral shape – 7

    • Quadratic triangular shape – 8

    • Quadratic quadrilateral shape - 9

  • The following Element Type Options (KEYOPT) are supported:

    • KEYOPT(2) - Contact Algorithm

    • KEYOPT(3) – Units of normal contact stiffness

      Values 0 and 1 only

    • KEYOPY(8) – Symmetric Contact Behavior

    • KEYOPT(9) – Effect of Initial Penetration or Gap

      Values 0, 1, 2, 4, and 5 supported
      All other values default to 0

    • KEYOPT(12) – Behavior of Contact Surface

    • KEYOPT(18) – Sliding Behavior

  • The following Real Constants are supported:

    • REAL(3) - Normal Penalty Stiffness Factor

    • REAL(10) – Contact Surface Stiffness

    • REAL(14) – Thermal Contact Conductance

  • Material Property MU – Coefficient of Friction

NASTRAN

Not supported.

ABAQUS

Mechanical supports the following ABAQUS contact keywords:

  • *CONTACT PAIR. Supported parameters:

    • TYPE

    • SMALL SLIDING

    • HCRIT

    • INTERACTION

    • TIED

  • *CONTACT INTERFERENCE (TYPE = CONTACT PAIR). SHRINK is the only option supported.

  • *CLEARANCE. Parameters MASTER, SLAVE, and VALUE are supported.

  • *SURFACE BEHAVIOR. Supported parameters:

    • NO SEPARATION

    • AUGMENTED LAGRANGE

  • *FRICTION. Supported parameters:

    • ROUGH

    • LAGRANGE

  • *CHANGE FRICTION: This keyword is supported for the first *STEP keyword specified in the input file only. Only the INTERACTION parameter is supported on this keyword.

  • *GAP CONDUCTANCE: The application supports gap conductance as a table of gap pressure or gap clearance. All the tabular values are averaged and used as a single thermal conductance value in the contact pair.

  • *TIE: Parameters NAME and POSITION TOLERANCE are supported.

See the Imported: Contact object reference section for additional information.