Learning Forum

[nbearns]

Hello,

I'm playing around with some bushing joints in ANSYS Mechanical R2021 and I'm noticing the following behavior:

When I connect two bodies using a bushing, there is a remote attachment method and a direct attachment method. My understanding is that the direct attachment method simply joins the nodes, whereas the remote method creates an MPC and applies a bushing to the MPCs generated on the selected geometry.

I'm running into the following issue: Using the remote attachment method seems to generate CONTA175 and TARGE170 elements. I have tested the same joint using direct attachment and no CONTA or TARGE elements are generated. Additionally, I have ensured that Auto-contact detection is turned off and there are no defined contacts within the simulation.

Could someone provide insight as to why the remote attachment method generates contact and target elements, and if so, is there a way to prevent this behavior?

Thanks!

[Sahil Sura]

For Remote points, solver uses MPC (Multi Point Constraints) to make the connections so the elements mentioned will be generated by solver. CONTA175may be used to represent contact and sliding between two surfaces (or between a node and a surface, or between a line and a surface) in 2-D or 3-D, It can be used for both pair-based contact and general contact while TARGE170is used to represent various 3-D"target"surfaces for the associated contact elements(CONTA174,CONTA175, andCONTA177). The contact elements themselves overlay the solid, shell, or line elements describing the boundary of a deformable body and are potentially in contact with the target surface, defined byTARGE170.
When a model is imported into Workbench Mechanical, the default setting of the application automatically detects instances where two bodies are in contact and generates correspondingContact Regionobjects in the tree Outline. So you may go for manual joint connection if that is the requirement.
You may refer to the following mentioned references to get a detailed overview.
Remote Points (ansys.com)
Joint Properties (ansys.com)
CONTA175 (ansys.com) TARGE170 (ansys.com)
Setting Contact Conditions Manually (ansys.com) Manual Joint Creation (ansys.com)
Thanks Sahil