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Structural & Thermal

Structural & Thermal

Model with nonlinear Contacts not converging due to (small) initial Rigid Body Motions in a Static Analysis (model underconstrained)

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      In Static Analyses of Assemblies with nonlinear contacts (frictionless, frictional, rough), it easily happens that not all parts of the model are initially in well-defined contact with their neighboring components. Then, initially, free rigid body motions are possible, which lead to a singular (or very close to singular) Stiffness Matrix such that the resulting equation system cannot be solved for a unique solution. Accordingly, convergence problems are met from the very beginning. A typical example for this situation is, when a gap in a bearing shall be taken into account. In these cases, it can be helpful to use the Quasi-Static solver option (TINTP,QUAS). As this option uses backward Euler time-integration, it is indeed not part of a real STATIC solution algorithm but of a TRANSIENT one. Accordingly, it requires switching to the analysis type transient and usually is more computationally expensive than a simple static analysis (with nonlinear contacts). ANSYS Help https://ansyshelp.ansys.com/account/secured?returnurl=/Views/Secured/corp/v190/ans_str/Hlp_G_STR5_12.html “For this option, the program uses backward Euler time-integration. The high numerical dissipation in this time-integration scheme can help to achieve convergence in some problems that are quasi-static in nature but fail to converge in a quasi-static analysis. … The automatic time incrementation does not try to maintain any minimum points per cycle, therefore allowing use of much larger time increments. … Applications that can benefit from using the QUAS option include: – buckling dominated simulations – models that may display temporary rigid body modes – and simulations that have a snap-through event, causing instability.” Nevertheless, in a ‘Static Structural’ Analysis in Mechanical, it can be invoked by just a small command snippet with very few APDL commands. Just insert a command snippet under the Static Structural branch ANTYPE,TRANS! switch to analysis type transient TINPT,QUAS ! switch to quasi-static solver option and make sure that you choose a small enough time step as initial time step size (e.g. 0.0001 s). Please also find a very simple example project attached, which contains a static and a transient analysis block. In each of them, the quasi-static solver option is invoked. Finally, please note that Contact Stabilization can be an alternative to the procedure described above. ANSYS Help https://ansyshelp.ansys.com/account/secured?returnurl=/Views/Secured/corp/v190/ans_ctec/Hlp_ctec_realkey.html Chapter 3.9.15

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