Creating surfaces to use in contact interactions

Now you will define contact between regions of the model. There are two approaches that can be adopted to define contact interactions. The first is a manual approach that requires you to identify which surfaces will form part of the contact interactions and to define the individual contact pairs. An alternative approach is to let Abaqus/CAE automatically identify and define all potential contact pairs. The latter approach is desirable for complicated models containing many contact interactions. The automatic contact definition option is available only for three-dimensional Abaqus/Standard models.

In Defining contact between regions of the model you will be given the option to define the contact interactions either manually (where you will use the surfaces defined in the following instructions) or automatically (in which case the surfaces defined below are not used; Abaqus/CAE will choose the surfaces automatically). For instructional purposes, however, you are encouraged to complete the surface definition instructions that follow regardless of the approach you choose to define the contact interactions.

When manually defining contact interactions, the first step is to create the surfaces that you will include later in interactions. It is not always necessary to create your surfaces in advance; if the model is simple or the surfaces easy to select, you can indicate the master and slave surfaces directly in the viewport as you create the interactions. However, in this tutorial it is easier to define the surfaces separately and then refer to the names of those surfaces when you create the interactions. You will define the following surfaces:

  • A surface named Pin that includes the outside surface of the pin.

  • Two surfaces named Flange-h and Flange-s that include the two flange faces that contact each other.

  • Two surfaces named Inside-h and Inside-s that include the inside surfaces of the flanges that contact the pin.


In this section:

Defining a surface on the pin
Defining the surfaces on the hinge pieces