Description: By default, nodes of element-based surfaces remain in the general contact calculations after all the surrounding elements fail, which is consistent with the behavior in previous versions. These nodes act as free-floating point masses that can experience contact with active contact faces. In Version 6.5 you can specify to remove nodes from the contact calculations once all the surrounding faces and edges have eroded. This process is referred to as nodal erosion.

The motivation for nodal erosion is to reduce computational cost, particularly for analyses conducted in parallel. Free-flying nodes are likely to move far away from the contact faces that remain active, which stretches the volume of the contact domain if nodal erosion is not specified, leading to increased contact search costs and, in parallel analyses, increased cost of communication between processors. However, contact involving free-flying nodes can contribute significant momentum transfer in some cases, which will not be accounted for if nodal erosion is specified.