ANSYS Mechanical Solutions - Technology

Contact Technology

Contact capability in ANSYS provides a complete set of contact technology to handle various scenarios of contact and assembly modeling. Some of the salient features of the capability include:

Multipoint Constraints and Assemblies

In addition to the basic contact capability, ANSYS provides assembly contact through Multipoint Constraint (MPC). Assembly contact offers the following advanced capability within ANSYS:

• Connect incompatible mesh regions
  • Solid-solid, shell-shell assemblies, thermal conduction (CEINTF type MPC)
• Apply transitions between solid and structure elements
  • Shell-solid, beam-solid assemblies
• Model kinematic constraints
  • Rigid constraint surface (CERIG type MPC)
  • Force distributed surface (RBE3 type MPC)
  • Small deformation: true linear contact
  • Large deformation: MPC equations are updated
• Types of assembly contact
  • Solid-Solid Assembly
  • Solid-Shell Assembly
  • Shell-Shell Assembly
  • Beam-Solid Assembly
  • Beam Shell Assembly

Multiphysics Contact

In addition to contact technology for structural applications, ANSYS offers thermal, electric and magnetic contact capabilities which cover a wide range of application scenarios in the coupled physics area:

• Heat/Electric conduction between two contacting surfaces
  • Functions of contact pressure, temperature
• Heat convection and/or radiation
• Heat generation due to
  • Frictional dissipated energy
  • Electric current
• Electric charge across the interface
  • Piezoelectric analysis
  • Electrostatic analysis
• Magnetic
  • Magnetic Flux analysis
  • Static and transient

Modeling Spot Welds in ANSYS

The traditional way of modeling spot welds involves matching the meshes of different parts at the spot weld connection points, which introduces meshing difficulties and often requires parts to be meshed manually. In addition, this approach does not take into account the effects of the spot weld radius, and it underestimates the strength of the spot weld connection when the radius of the spot weld is the same or lesser order of magnitude than the mesh size.

The ANSYS spot weld feature, based on the internal MPC approach, offers a robust alternative to the traditional method. This feature allows you to easily model thin sheet components that are connected with spot welds, rivets or fasteners. The spot weld can be located anywhere between the parts that are to be connected, independent of the mesh and the node locations.