Learning Forum

[Webster]

Hi everyone,

I'm looking for advice on the most suitable keyword in LS-DYNA to prescribe a node-to-node connection. In my model, the master nodes are located on beam elements, and the slave nodes are on shell elements.

Currently, I’m using *CONTACT_TIED_NODES_TO_SURFACE. However, when I run a model check and go to Contact Check → Tied, I notice that tied nodes are only shown at time = 0. For all other time steps, the total number of tied nodes drops to zero. Is this expected behavior?

Any suggestions on how to effectively monitor this contact throughout the simulation would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

[Dennis Chen]

Hello, in your preprocessor, is there an option to simply merge nodes?   In workbench Ls-Dyna, you can do a node merge.    I've done this in a project where I had to merge a beam element nodes onto a the nodes on the surface of a solid element.    By making sure you set your element size/# of division properly, you can get a decent node merge (without nodes moving too much).

On the solid/shell element, you can also physically add a line that matches the beam element line, and set the same mesh condition on both so it's a 1-1 merge.

Hope this helps.