Question - How do I prescribe a relative displacement / relative motion between two bodies in Ansys Mechanical?
Answer - Use a Joint together with a Joint Load to prescribe a relative motion (relative displacement and rotation) between two bodies in Ansys Mechanical as Boundary Condition.
See the following link for a table with allowable DOF for applying Joint Loads.
Note: Joint Loads can be defined for all Joint Types except fixed, general, universal, and spherical joints.
For the prescription of a general relative motion, use a Bushing Joint with no (0) stiffness in all 6 DOF (3 translations and 3 rotations).
Then define a Joint Load for each of the 6 DOF to specify the relative motion.
Please find a simple example attached (workbench archive).
Note: Alternatively, I might be useful to define a contact with tabular contact offset definitions (tabular CNOF).
(Defining Real Constants in Tabular Format)
Keywords: relative motion, relative displacements, relative rotations
Click here to download the example files.