Contact

[Roxana]

Dear Developers,

How should the initial contact in a biphasic problem be defined?
I see in some cases a gap is preferred and in other cases a decimal overlap between the surfaces in contact is left. Is this last one better than having the same coordinates for the slave and master surfaces?

Thank you!

[brandonz]

Hi Roxana,

In any type of sliding contact, an initial overlap is only required for force-control problems. This is because at the first iteration of the first time step a contact force is needed to balance the applied force, and a contact force is only generated when there is an overlap.

For other analyses, e.g. displacement control, I usually prefer to place my contacting surfaces such that they're exactly coincident (same coordinates for the contacting surfaces).

Hope this helps.

Brandon

[Roxana]

Hello Brandon,

Yes, it helps.
Thank you so much!

Roxana