Defining contact pairs (Abaqus Structural and Thermal analyses)

You can use a contact pair modeling object to define the properties of the pairs of surfaces or edges that may contact or interact during a Structural or Thermal analysis. For example, you can control friction and surface interaction properties.

Types of contact pairs

You can create the following contact pair modeling objects:

• Contact Pair — Lets you define the properties for a Surface-to-Surface Contact or Edge to Edge Contact simulation object for an Abaqus Structural analysis.

• Mechanical Contact Pair — Lets you define the properties for a Surface-to-Surface Thermal Conductance simulation object for an Abaqus Thermal analysis.

The options in the Contact Pair and Mechanical Contact Pair dialog box correspond to parameters for the Abaqus *CONTACT PAIR, *SURFACE INTERACTION, *SURFACE BEHAVIOR, and *FRICTION keywords. For more information, see the Abaqus Keywords Guide and Mechanical contact properties in the Abaqus Analysis Guide.

For more information about surface-to-surface contacts, see Surface-to-Surface Contact (Simcenter Nastran, Simcenter 3D Multiphysics, Abaqus, ANSYS). For more information about edge-to-edge contacts, see Edge to Edge Contact (Abaqus). For more information about surface-to-surface thermal conductance, see Surface-to-Surface Thermal Conductance (Abaqus).

Defining cohesive behavior and damage modeling

When you define contact in the Abaqus environment, you can model cohesive behavior for the contacting surfaces. In Abaqus, cohesive behavior is a generalized traction-separation behavior for surfaces. Cohesive behavior is defined as a surface-based contact property for contact pairs. Surface-based cohesive behavior is primarily intended for situations in which the interface thickness is negligibly small.

To model cohesive behavior, select the Include Cohesive Behavior check box in the Contact Pair. You can then specify a Cohesive Behavior modeling object to define properties for the surface-based cohesive behavior.

For more information, see Modeling cohesive behavior in Abaqus contact analyses.

Defining damage modeling for cohesive surfaces

When you select the Include Cohesive Behavior check box, you can also include damage modeling to simulate the degradation and eventual failure of the bond between two cohesive surfaces.

For more information, see Defining damage modeling for Abaqus cohesive behavior.

Selecting contact pair output

You can use an Abaqus Structural Requests or Abaqus Thermal Requests modeling object to select the master and slave surfaces of a contact pair for which you want output, and specify a subset of slave nodes for output. If you do not specify surfaces or slave nodes, Abaqus outputs surface variables for all the contact pairs in the model. If you specify the slave surface but not the master surface, Abaqus outputs results for all contact pairs that involve the specified slave surface.

The options in the Abaqus Structural Output and Abaqus Thermal Requests dialog boxes correspond to the parameters for the Abaqus *CONTACT PRINT and *CONTACT FILE keywords.

For more information, see Contacts in the Abaqus Structural, Explicit, Thermal, and Thermal-Structural Output Requests dialog box.

Where do I find it?

Defining contact pairs

Application	Pre/Post
Prerequisites	A Simulation file as the work part and displayed partAbaqus as the specified solver Structural, Thermal, Axisymmetric Thermal, or Dynamic Coupled Thermal-Structural as the specified analysis type
Command Finder	Modeling Objects
Location in dialog box	Modeling Objects Manager dialog box→Type list→Contact Pair or Mechanical Contact Pair

Defining contact pair output

Application	Pre/Post
Prerequisites	A Simulation file as the work part and displayed partAbaqus as the specified solverStructural or Thermal as the specified analysis type
Command Finder	Modeling Objects
Location in dialog box	Modeling Objects Manager dialog box→Type list→Abaqus Thermal Output Requests or Abaqus Structural Output Requests

How do I

Change the value of friction properties in a solution step (Abaqus)

Create multiple contact step controls (Abaqus)

Learn more

Defining contact properties (Abaqus Dynamic Explicit analyses)

Defining contact properties for general contacts (Abaqus)

Modifying friction properties between steps (Abaqus)

Controlling contact steps (Abaqus)

Contact interference (Abaqus)

Automatic face pairing

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Defining contact pairs (Abaqus Structural and Thermal analyses), Simcenter 3D 2021.1 Series

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