Structural & Thermal

Structural & Thermal

How to change contact type between load steps during an analysis? For instance, one want to have a bonded contact during the 1st load step and change it to frictionless in the 2nd load step.

    • FAQFAQ
      Participant

      In Ansys 19.0 and later, one can right click on the analysis branch in the Outline and insert a “Contact Step Control.” Then create both contact types in the model, bonded and frictionless with the same scoping selections. Use the “Contact Step Control” to activate the bonded contact in the first step (alive) and kill it in the second load step (dead). Use another “Contact Step Control” to deactivate the frictionless contact in the first load step and activate it in the second load step. These status changes are done in the table of the “Contact Step Control,’ to the right, not in the Details of the feature. In Ansys 18.2 and earlier, it has to be done entirely with command snippets. The ekill and elive commands can be used. Insert a command snippet under a contact with lines like these: mcid=cid mtid=tid Then under the analysis branch insert a command snippet with lines like these: esel,s,type,,mcid esel,a,type,,mtid ekill,all allsel,all One can set the load step for which the command snippet applies in the Details.