Auto Contact

In the Auto Contact dialog, define the *CONTACT PAIR and *TIE keywords along with the corresponding *SURFACE cards.

In the Abaqus user profile, use Auto Contact to quickly and easily create interactions between several parts of your model. Based on a proximity distance, Auto Contact will search the model and automatically define surfaces from identified components. The interactions and surfaces are placed into a temporary Auto Contact Browser, where you can review the pairs and make adjustments as needed.

Two types of interactions can be created by the auto contact functionality:
*CONTACT PAIR
Definition of pairs of surfaces, which can contact or interact during an analysis. When selecting this type of interaction, you must also specify the surface interaction properties.
*TIE
Definition of constraints and interactions between pairs of surfaces. No surface interaction definition is required.
Do not split interfaces between two components
When enabled, Auto Contact will only create one contact pair or tie contact, even if components are within proximity distance in several places.
If disabled, Auto Contact will create separate interfaces (CONTACT PAIR or TIE), if common surfaces between two components are not fully connected.
For example, The yellow and red brackets are a component each and touch each other in two unconnected areas.


Figure 1.
With the option disabled both contact areas would result into a separate contact pair/tie definition, whereas with the option enabled (only one contact pair definition is created by the algorithm).


Figure 2.
The Auto Contact dialog contains the following buttons:
Button Action
Find Searches the model for interacting components.
Cancel Closes the dialog without updates.
Remove Selection Removes selected components from the table. You can use the Control and Shift key to select multiple items in the table.
Review Selection Highlights the selected component in the graphic area. All other components are grayed out. You can use the Control and Shift key to select multiple items in the table.

Right-click to return the model to normal display.
Help Opens the Auto Contact online help.