Using Contact Detection

You can use contact detection to identify surfaces in a model that have high potential for contact and creates surface-based contact features for them.

Note: The contact detection tool does not create contact features between different surfaces on the same assembly component or mesh part.

See Also
About Contact Detection
Defining Surface-based Contact
In Other Guides
Feature Manager
  1. From the Interactions section of the action bar, click Contact Detection .
  2. Choose the Search domain:
    • Whole Model: Search all components in the assembly for contacting surfaces. This is the default if you do not select any geometry.
    • Click individual components in the model to select candidate geometry supports. Contact is considered only between the selected components. If you select a single component, contact features are considered between surfaces on the selected component and any other contacting surfaces in the model.
    • Select mesh parts from the tree or from the view. When you select mesh parts along with Detect interactions on: Mesh, surface-based contacts are created only between the selected mesh parts.
  3. Optional: Change the default Search tolerance, which defines the maximum separation distance between potential contacting surfaces.

    If two surfaces are closer to each other than the search tolerance that you specify, the app considers these two surfaces to be in contact with each other.

  4. Optional: Select Tie surfaces together to create contact features that tie the surfaces together; no relative motion between the surfaces will occur at contacting interfaces during the simulation.

    Note: The Tie surfaces together option is not available in thermal simulation steps.

  5. Click Find Surface Pairs.

    A separate dialog box shows the surface pair detection progress. When completed, a table displays candidate contact features for surfaces that meet the detection requirements. You can edit these contact features as necessary:

    1. Right-click on any row in the table to Locate, Edit, or Remove that contact feature. You can also choose Invert Selection to select the other contact features in the table.

      Note: If you select Edit from the context menu, the Surface-Based Contact dialog box opens to let you enter parameters for all of the selected contact features. These options are described in Surface-based Contact Options.

    2. Select multiple rows in the table ([Ctrl]+[Click] or [Shift]+[Click]) and then choose Edit, Merge, or Remove for those features. Again you can choose Invert Selection to select the other contact features in the table.
  6. Optional: You can change the search domain or tolerance and click Find Surface Pairs again to change the search criteria. Any new surface pairs found are marked by an asterisk (*) in the table.
  7. Click OK.