Contact and glue conditions > Abaqus contact and glue > General Contact

General Contact (Abaqus)

When Abaqus is the solver, you can use the General Contact command to define a general contact domain for a model. You can use automated processes to define the contact, or you can manually specify the surfaces and contact properties, which can result in more efficient analyses.

For more information about defining surfaces, see Including surfaces in general contacts (Abaqus).

Defining and assigning contact properties

When creating a general contact, you can use the General Contact Property modeling object to assign properties to the surfaces of the general contact. Abaqus Structural analyses, by default, assume a hard contact in the normal direction, no friction, and no thermal interactions.

You can also assign contact properties to only a subset of surfaces using the Contact Assignment modeling object.

For more information, see Defining contact properties for general contacts (Abaqus).

Excluding surfaces

Use the Contact Exclusions simulation object to refine the contact definition by specifying the surfaces of the model that should not be considered for contact. Excluding surfaces helps to ensure that no unreasonable or impossible contact interactions exist.

For more information, see Excluding surfaces from general contacts (Abaqus).

Defining the general contact

In a Structural analysis, you define a general contact at the solution level, and it is then active for all subsequent steps. For an Explicit Dynamic or Dynamic Coupled Thermal-Stress step, you can define the general contact at the step level. If you define a general contact at the step level, the general contact defined at the solution level is ignored (inactive).

Examples of use

Applications involving extreme deformation

In Dynamic Explicit and Dynamic Coupled Thermal-Structural solution types, a general contact is the only method available to enforce contact between Eulerian materials and Lagrangian bodies. Therefore, use it in applications involving extreme deformation, including fluid flow. In these applications, traditional Lagrangian elements become highly distorted and lose accuracy. In addition, you can also handle liquid sloshing, gas flow, and penetration problems using Eulerian analysis with a general contact. Rivet forming is another example of using Eulerian analysis with a general contact for a severe deformation analysis.

Fluid-structure interaction

Fluid-structure interaction, including the impact of a water-filled bottle, is another example.

Enforcing contact between DEM or SPH particles

A general contact is also the only option for enforcing contact that involves discrete element method (DEM) or smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) particles. Other examples of SPH applications are fluid sloshing, wave engineering, ballistics, spraying, gas flow, and obliteration and fragmentation followed by secondary impacts.

Interactions between DEM particles and between DEM particles and FE-based surfaces

You can extend a general contact to include interactions among DEM particles and interactions between DEM particles and finite-element-based (or analytical) surfaces. Typical DEM applications with a general contact include particle packing, particle flow, and particle-fluid interaction (for example, processes such as pouring or deposition under gravity, vibration after deposition of particles, compaction, transport of granular material within a fluid flow, during wavelike motion and fluidization).

Associated Abaqus keywords

The options in the General Contact dialog box correspond to parameters for the Abaqus *CONTACT, *CONTACT INCLUSION, and *SURFACE keywords.

For more information about general contacts, see Defining general contact in Abaqus/Standard and Defining general contact in Abaqus/Explicit in the Abaqus Analysis User's Guide.

Where do I find it?

General contact

Application	Pre/Post
Prerequisites	An Simulation file as the work part and displayed partAbaqus as the specified solver Structural, Axisymmetric Structural, Dynamic Explicit, Coupled Thermal-Structural, or Dynamic Coupled Thermal-Structural as the analysis type
Command Finder	General contact
Simulation Navigator	Expand the active solution→right-click Simulation Objects→New Simulation Object→General Contact

General Contact Property modeling object

Application	Pre/Post
Prerequisites	A Simulation file as the work part and displayed partAbaqus as the specified solver Dynamic Explicit as the analysis type
Simulation Navigator	Right-click Modeling Objects
Location in dialog box	Type list→General Contact Property

Contact exclusions

Application	Pre/Post
Prerequisites	A Simulation file as the work part and displayed partAbaqus as the specified solver Structural, Axisymmetric Structural, Dynamic Explicit, Coupled Thermal-Structural, and Dynamic Coupled Thermal-Structural as the analysis type
Command Finder	Contact Exclusion
Simulation Navigator	Expand the active solution→right-click Simulation Objects→New Simulation Object→Contact Exclusion

How do I

Define a general contact (Abaqus)

Define contact properties within a general contact (Abaqus)

Define contact exclusions (Abaqus)

Assign contact properties to surfaces (Abaqus)

Learn more

Defining contact properties for general contacts (Abaqus)

Including surfaces in general contacts (Abaqus)

Excluding surfaces from general contacts (Abaqus)

Automatic face pairing

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