4/2/2018 How Abaqus treats initial overclosures of contacting surfaces

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How Abaqus treats initial
overclosures of contacting
surfaces
Posted by Christine Obbink-Huizer on Apr 25, 2017 9:24:07 AM

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In this blog, we will explain and show the different methods

Abaqus has to treat an initial overlap of contact surfaces, with an
axisymmetric O-ring as example.

Figure 1: cross-section of O-ring set-up used as example

Reasons for initial overclosures

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4/2/2018 How Abaqus treats initial overclosures of contacting surfaces

When working on contact problems, contacting surfaces can

overlap at the start of the analysis; in this case there is an initial
overclosure or penetration.

This can occur due to different reasons: the CAD modelling can
be poor leading to overlaps between parts. This is unintended.

Initial overlap can also occur due to discretization errors. If two

round, touching geometries with the same radius are discretized
with a different element size, they will deviate from the original
round shape in a different way (see Figure 2). This is also
unintended.

Figure 2:

A third reason for initial overlap, is modelling of an interference

fit. In this case the undeformed parts penetrate, because in
practice they are deformed when placed in their initial position.
This is the case with the O-ring, that will be deformed to fit in its
initial position. In this case the overlap is intended, and it should
be resolved in such a way that there are stresses and strains
when the parts are in contact.

Ways of solving initial

overclosures
There are two main ways of solving initial overclosures in
Abaqus: with strain-free adjustments or with interference fits.

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Strain-free adjustments
With strain-free adjustments, the nodes on the slave are moved
in such a way that the overclosure is removed, without stress or
strain occurring. This is suitable for unintended overlaps. The
nodes are already moved at time point 0 of the first analysis
step, so the undeformed mesh is changed. Especially for large
overlaps, this can give distorted elements.

Interference fits
When the overlap is treated as an interference fit, stresses and
strains do occur when moving the nodes to a non-overlapping
position. This is suitable for intended overlaps. At time point 0 of
the first analysis steps the parts are in their originally specified
positions and the overlap is solved during the first increment or
during the first step of the analysis.

Specifying the different options in

Abaqus
Whether initial overclosures are solved with strain-free
adjustments or with interference fits by default, depends on
whether general contact, or contact pairs are used. I will show
how to set the different options and what the result is in the
model of an O-ring.

General contact
When using general contact, small overclosures are treated with
strain-free adjustments by default. Abaqus chooses a master
and slave surface itself, and a limiting value to determine what a
small overclosure is. Overclosures bigger than this cut-off, are
not adjusted.

Figure 3: general contact with default settings

In the example, only one node is adjusted, because the other

overclosures are too big. The cut-off value can be changed, by
defining and specifying a contact initialization. In the ‘edit

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4/2/2018 How Abaqus treats initial overclosures of contacting surfaces

interaction’ dialog box for the general contact, Initialization

assignments can be specified. By clicking on the icon indicated
in Figure 4, a contact initialization can be created. Here the cut-
off value to determine when an overclosure is so big that it can
be ignored can be specified. Small gaps can be closed by
specifying a non-zero value for Ignore initial openings greater
than:

Figure 4: creating a contact initialization

Click on the pencil icon behind Initialization assignments in the

Edit Interaction dialog box to assign the newly created contact
initialization to a surface pair. Select the required surfaces and
the contact initialization assignment and press the button
indicated in Figure 5 to create the assignment. This can be done
for more than one set of surfaces, as required.

Figure 5: assigning a contact initialization to a pair of surfaces

In this example, two sets of surfaces were defined, one for the
contact on each side of the O-ring. The result is shown in Figure
6. Note that a coarse mesh was used. If more than one element
in the slave overlaps the master, the elements will turn inside

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4/2/2018 How Abaqus treats initial overclosures of contacting surfaces

out, making them unusable for analysis. The model is stress and
strain free in the image shown.

Figure 6: General contact, increased cut-off for ignored

overclosures

It is possible to specify that an initial overlap should be treated

as interference fit for specified contacting surfaces using general
contact. This is done with a contact initialization, similar to the
way the offset for ignored overclosures was changed. When
selecting Treat as interference fits for a pair of surfaces, the
overclosure will be removed gradually during the first step,
resulting in stresses and strains in the deformed parts (Figure
7).

Figure 7: General contact, specifying interference fit

Contact pairs
When using contact pairs, overclosures are treated with
interference fits by default, with the interference being solved in
the first increment. With the mesh shown previously, the results
after the first increment are similar to those with general contact
and an interference fit.

When the diameter of the O-ring is reduced (Figure 8), Abaqus

can no longer solve the interference fit in one increment (the
default).

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4/2/2018 How Abaqus treats initial overclosures of contacting surfaces

Figure 8: O-ring with reduced diameter

In cases such as this, it is possible to gradually solve the

overclosure during the first step. This is done by editing the
interaction in the first analysis step and clicking on options:
Interference Fit (Figure 9). It is important to select the first
general analysis step (and not e.g. the initial step) as active step
when defining an interference fit, because otherwise the
required option will be grayed out.

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Figure 9: Changing interference fit settings

In the Interference Fit Options dialog box, the default setting is

no allowable interference. In this case, the overclosures will be
resolved in the first increment. The second option Gradually
remove slave node overclosure during the step will be used
here, with Automatic shrink fit as overclosure adjustment.
Abaqus then automatically determines and removes the initial
overclosures, instead of having to specify the amount of
interference that must be removed.

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Figure 10: Gradually removing overclosure during step

With these settings, Abaqus can resolve the initial overclosure.

Figure 11: Gradually resolve initial overclosure

It is also possible to specify that initial overclosures should be

resolved using strain-free adjustments, using the Edit Interaction
dialog box. This must be done in the step in which the contact is
created. In the Slave Adjustment tab, the default setting is No
Adjustment (Figure 12).

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Figure 12: strain free adjustments in contact pair

Alternatively, it is possible to adjust only to remove overclosures.

In this case overclosures are removed, but small gaps are kept
in place. You can also specify tolerance for adjustment zone. In
this case, all slave nodes within the tolerance of the master
surface will be moved on the master surface strain free; both
nodes with an initial overclosure and nodes with an initial gap.
The last option is adjust slave nodes in set:. With this setting, all
nodes in the specified set that are on the slave surface are
moved on the master surface. Nodes on the slave surface that
are not in the set are not moved, so initial overclosures may
remain.

Checking performance under

pressure
Of course it is not only interesting to see the O-ring as it is
deformed to fit in its position, but also to know how it behaves
under pressure. To do this, the pressure penetration option in

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Abaqus is used. For a surface-to-surface contact, pressure

penetration allows a defined pressure to be prescribed only to
the parts of contacting surfaces that have a contact pressure of
0. If the pressure opens up the contact and the contact pressure
becomes zero at an additional node, the pressure will penetrate
and it will also be applied to that node.

In this example, a more refined mesh will be used, to allow

larger deformations due to the pressure application. A surface-
to-surface interaction is defined for each side of the O-ring. In
the first step of the analysis an interference fit is performed, as
described previously. An additional step is added, to apply
pressure penetration. For each of the interactions an additional
interaction is made, of type Pressure penetration.

Figure 13:

The previously defined contact interaction can then be selected,

so the maser and slave surface are already known. On both the
master and the slave a region needs to be defined where the
pressure is applied initially. In this case, the regions indicated by
arrows in Figure 14 are chosen. The pressure will then
automatically penetrate up to the point where the O-ring is in
contact. This simplifies specifying the appropriate region
compared to having to partition the O-ring in such a way that it is
possible to only apply pressure in the non-contacting area. A
Fluid Pressure must also be specified, this is the pressure that is
applied in the non-contacting area. A fluid pressure of 5 MPa (50

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bar) is chosen in this case, and it is ramped up during the

simulation step.

Figure 14: The pressure penetration interaction definition

The field output PPRESS is requested. This is the pressure that

is applied to the surface due to pressure penetration. This will
show where the pressure is applied, as well as its current
magnitude.

Results
The deformed shape after the interference fit is shown in Figure
15.

Figure 15: Strain after the interference fit

When the pressure is applied, the O-ring is pushed into the

corners, as expected. See animation below.

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4/2/2018 How Abaqus treats initial overclosures of contacting surfaces

The PPRESS output nicely shows the region where the

pressure is applied. This would be difficult to guess initially.

Figure 16: PPRESS showing the region where pressure is

applied on the undeformed (left) and deformed (right) shape

Summary
Abaqus has options to solve initial overclosures in a strain-
free manner and by treating it as an interference fit
The default is different for general contact (strain-free
adjustment) and contact pairs (interference fit)
In both cases, the other option can be specified as wellThe
pressure penetration option is useful when a pressure is
prescribed to the part of a contact surface that is not currently
in contact.

Request a Quote for Abaqus

Now

Topics: Abaqus

Chris Zimmer
10/12/2017, 8:06:03 PM

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4/2/2018 How Abaqus treats initial overclosures of contacting surfaces

How would a 2D simulation with over-closure like this

be handled in abaqus explicit?

Reply to Chris Zimmer

Dolf Broekaart
10/13/2017, 4:54:57 PM

In Abaqus/Explicit, the default behaviour for both general

contact and contact pairs is to resolve overclosures using
strain-free adjustments, so I would expect results similar to
those in the section ‘General contact’

Reply to Dolf Broekaart

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