# Contact damping

 Contact damping: can be defined to oppose the relative motion between the interacting surfaces (in addition to the contact pressure-overclosure relationships discussed in Contact pressure-overclosure relationships and the friction models discussed in Frictional behavior); can affect both the motion normal and tangential to the surfaces; in the normal direction is proportional to the relative velocity between the surfaces; in the tangential direction is proportional to the relative tangential velocity in Abaqus/Standard and to the “elastic slip rate” associated with friction (see Frictional behavior for a discussion of elastic slip) in Abaqus/Explicit—hence, in Abaqus/Explicit it does not resist the bulk of tangential sliding; is not applicable for linear perturbation procedures; in Abaqus/Standard it contributes to the force and stiffness definition and should generally be used only when it is otherwise impossible to obtain a solution—the best method for allowing a viscous pressure and shear stress to be transmitted between the contact surfaces in Abaqus/Standard to reduce convergence difficulties due to the sudden violation of contact constraints (common in some snap-through and buckling problems involving contact) is to specify the damping on a step-by-step basis using contact controls, as discussed in Automatic stabilization of rigid body motions in contact problems; and can be useful in Abaqus/Explicit to reduce solution noise—a small amount of viscous contact damping is used by default for softened contact and penalty contact in Abaqus/Explicit, as discussed below. The following topics are discussed:
 Related Topics About mechanical contact properties In Other Guides *CONTACT DAMPING Creating interaction properties

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