Hertz Contact Mechanics

Contacts are essential means of transferring forces in any mechanical system. Although the mechanical components are designed to sustain the operating forces, special care must be taken for the contacts as they are found in very small areas. Because of this, the transferred loads through such small areas develop high stresses. These localized stresses may result in highly localized yielding. Surface wear and tear or cracks start to appear in the contact region. Engineers can use simulations to analyze the contacts. As these are highly non-linear, special care must be taken when deciding the mesh resolution and for setting boundary constraints.

This SimCafe Structural Course was developed by Dr. Rajesh Bhaskaran, Swanson Director of Engineering Simulation at Cornell University, and Sebastien Lachance-Barrett, in partnership with Ansys. It was last modified by Ju Hwan Shin. It serves as an e-learning resource to integrate industry-standard simulation tools into courses and provides a resource for supplementary learning outside the classroom. In this course, we will learn to solve the contact mechanics on a simple spherical canonical object that is in contact with a rigid wall. Here, we will discuss the detailed step-by-step process to analyze this contact using Ansys Workbench.

For more ways to learn, check out the Cornell edX course, A Hands-on Introduction to Engineering Simulations at ansys.com/cornell.

Cornell University also offers a Fluid Dynamics Simulations Using Ansys online certificate authored by Dr. Rajesh Bhaskaran. Learn more here: https://ecornell.cornell.edu/fluiddynamics.

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