Defining Surface-Based Contact or Bonded Contact by Detecting Contact

You can use the contact detection tool to find candidate surface pairs and apply different types of contact depending on the type of simulation.

For structural, buckling, and frequency simulations, you can use the bonded contact detection tool to find candidate surface pairs and apply bonded contact. For thermal simulations, you can use the contact detection tool to find candidate surface pairs and apply thermal contact.

See Also
About Contact
About Surface-Based Contact and Bonded Contact
About Proximity and Orientation Requirements
  1. From the Connections section of the action bar, click the appropriate option:

    • For structural, buckling, or frequency simulations, click Bonded Contact Detection .
    • For thermal simulations, click Contact Detection .

  2. Specify a Search domain.

    By default, the app searches the whole model for contacting surfaces. You can select candidate geometry supports by clicking individual components in the model. The app considers contact features between the selected components only. If you select a single component, the app only considers the contact features between surfaces on the selected component and any other contacting surfaces in the model.

  3. Enter a value for the 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. Click Find Surface Pairs.
    The dialog box lists candidate contact features for surfaces that meet the proximity requirements. Right-click any feature to locate or delete it.
  5. Optional: To change the search domain, click Find Surface Pairs again.
    Any new surface pairs found are marked by an asterisk (*) in the table.
  6. For thermal simulations, enter a value for the Conductance, which is a measure of the conductive heat transfer between the contacting surfaces.

    A higher conductance value implies an easier transfer of heat across the surfaces, while a conductance of zero prevents heat from transferring across the surfaces.

  7. Click OK.