Contact in Zebulon

Contact problems may be easily solved, for any of the element formulations, and any of the material laws. Specifying contact is identical for 2D and 3D problems. A contact surface is defined by a boundary set (lines or faces), and an opposing set of nodes which may come into contact. The solution is by associated stiffness, where a highly nonlinear loop of contact iterations is solved after each loading increment. Even though there are many iterations for the contact, it does not affect the global solution iterations, thereby reducing greatly the cost of solutions with contact.

This example of a bellows seal under axial rotation of the lower portion involved three dimensional multi-surface surface contact. The calculation is done using Total Lagrangian, mixed pressure displacement elements and Mooney hyper-elasticity.

Contact is compatible with all the element formulations and all the material behaviors. The calculation here is of a axisymmetric disk forging with contact on the impacting die surface. The material is a corotational finite strain formulation with kinematic and isotropic hardening. The contour is of the equivalent inelastic strain, which approaches 100 percent.