Complex model vs simple model problem

[sascari]

Hi,

I'm having a problem with scanned complex models. As an experiment, I had a squishy cube collide into a stiff cube with a sticky contact between them, and it was able to run just fine and the squishy cube deformed as expected.

However, when I try something similar with a complex model like a 3D scan (and the other object is again a squishy cube), the 3D model goes through the cube like a hologram. Does anyone know what could be wrong?

Thanks

[maas]

Hi,

The most common cause for contacting surfaces penetrating each other is a penalty factor that is too low. Try increasing the penalty parameter in your contact definition and see if that helps. In principle the penalty factor has units of Force / Length, so it is affected by things such as element size and material stiffness. You can also turn on the auto_penalty flag, which makes an initial guess for a penalty factor. The "penalty" parameter will be then a unit-less scale factor for this auto-penalty factor. Let us know if that helped.

Cheers,

Steve

[sascari]

Thank you, that resolved the problem! Though I wasn't able to find any auto-penalty flag.