Simulating a Tendon-Driven Soft Hinge

- July 6, 2018 at 1:10 am
  
  ChDYT
  Subscriber
  
  Hi,
  
  I am trying to simulate a tendon-driven soft hinge in ANSYS. I managed to use Link180 to simulate the tendon. However, I have a problem with the contact. The contact between the line body and the solid face is not detected. The tendon crosses the solid body.
  
  I would like to ask you if anyone knows how to overcome this problem.
  
  Best regards,
  
  ChDYT
- July 6, 2018 at 1:59 am
  
  Sandeep Medikonda
  Ansys Employee
  
  Hello,
  
  Can you insert a contact tool and check the status to see whats happening? Try to even increase the number of sub-steps so that the loads are applied more gradually and increase the pinball radius.
  
  Also, what contact algorithm are you using?
  
  Based on what you have described I think it would help if you used a nodal contact detection instead of the defaults (gauss integration points).
  
  Checkout this useful article and see if it helps?
  
  Regards,
  
  Sandeep
- July 6, 2018 at 2:53 am
  
  peteroznewman
  Subscriber
  
  Hello,
  
  If you create a Workbench Project Archive .wpbz file and attach it to your post, it will be much easier to suggest how to overcome the problem. Please also say what version of ANSYS you are using: 18.2 19.1 etc.
  
  Regards,
  
  Peter
- July 6, 2018 at 5:55 am
  
  Bhargava Sista
  Ansys Employee
  
  ChDYT,
  
  What kind of contact is it? Bonded/no separation (linear) or frictionless/frictional/rough (nonlinear) contact? If its a nonlinear contact, what version are you using? The nonlinear line-surface contact was introduced more recently and depending on the version you may need to use some command snippets to define relevant real constants.
  
  For linear contacts, make sure that the pinball radius is larger than the gap between the beam and the solid surface. I'd recommend defining the pinball manually rather than leaving it as Program Controlled.