Learning Forum

[mekafime]

Hi

in this model I have the mesh as shown in the figure, is it necessary that the mesh in the connection between the base and the diagonals have the shape as the red lines? Does it affect the results of stress?

[peteroznewman]

It's not necessary. The contact elements create a spiderweb of connections from nodes on the diagonal to nodes on the flat.  You can have better control of how far out the contact element reaches and the evenness on the distance it reaches if you do make a conformal mesh, so the stress results could be improved in that way, but you could get the same effect by having smaller elements on the flat face.

If the Bonded Contact formulation is MPC, you can view the contact elements by clicking on the Solution Information folder and selecting the Graphics tab instead of the Worksheet tab.

Regards,
Peter