Contact entities can represent how a body reacts when it comes in contact with another body under motion. Two bodies may intermittently or continuously be in contact. Motion supports adequate contact entities for each contact status. Contact entities can therefore be classified as intermittent contact or continuous contact as follows.
Intermittent contact
This type of contact uses general entities to represent most contact mechanisms and requires compliance characteristics to calculate a contact force. Otherwise a friction force can be calculated using the Coulomb friction formulation.
Figure 7.1: List of intermittent contacts
| Type | Description |
| General Contact | Use to represent contact between a rigid body, nodal flexible body and nodal EasyFlex body. |
| Rigid to Rigid 3D Contact (RTR3D Contact) | Use to represent contact between rigid bodies. |
| Flex to Rigid 3D Contact (FTR3D Contact) | Use to represent contact between a nodal flexible body and rigid body. |
| Flex to Flex 3D Contact (FTF3D Contact) | Use to represent contact between nodal flexible bodies. |
| Sphere to Multi-Curve Contact | Use to define contact between a sphere body and a surface which can be represented with multiple curves. This contact is available only for rigid bodies. |
| Cylinder to Multi-Curve Contact | Use to define contact between a cylinder body and a surface which can be represented with multiple curves. This contact is available only for rigid bodies. |
| Multi-Curve to Multi-Curve Contact | Use to define contact between surfaces which can be represented with multiple curves. This contact is available only for rigid bodies. |
Continuous contact
This type of contact is similar to a constraint. A point on the action surface is constrained to be fixed or sliding on the base surface. Motion supports only a Tie contact, which enforces the points on the action surface to always be fixed at the corresponding locations on the base surface.
Figure 7.2: List of continuous contact
| Type | Description |
| Tie Contact | Use to attach adjacent surfaces of two bodies. |