Reply To: Force Convergence Issue in Solder Joint Reliability Simulations

[peteroznewman]

When all the bodies in the simulation share any face or edge and the Share button is used to create shared topology, no contacts are permitted between those bodies.

It is possible to create components, put some bodies on one component and other bodies in another component, then open one component, use the Share button on the first component, close that then open the second component and use the Share button on that.  In that way, you can define contact between faces of the two components, while all the bodies within each component are held together by the shared nodes.

You should type in a value of 3 under the Solution Information folder to show 3 N-R Residuals plots under the Solution Information folder.  Look at the location of the Maximum N-R Force Residual in the mesh to know where is the problem that causes the convergence failure. 

I suggest you delete the Fixed Support and use a Remote Displacement, Behavior = Deformable on the face(s) that were scoped by the Fixed Support. Set all six constraints to a value of 0.  The remote displacemet prevents rigid body motion, which would cause the solver to fail, while allowing that face to have a stress-free expansion. The Fixed Support does not allow the face to have a stress-free thermal expansion and can be a source of N-R Force Convergence issues.