15.12.8 Specifying master-slave assignments for general contact

Attributes for a general contact interaction, such as contact formulation, are specified independently of the contact domain in the Attribute Assignments portion of the interaction editor. You can specify pure master-slave weighting for node-to-face contact in a general contact interaction. For a brief overview of general contact, see Understanding interactions, Section 15.3. For a more detailed discussion, see Contact formulation for general contact, Section 29.3.4 of the ABAQUS Analysis User's Manual.

To specify master-slave assignments:

  1. Display the general contact interaction editor using one of the following methods:

  2. Click the Contact Formulation tab in the Attribute Assignments portion of the interaction editor.

  3. Click Edit next to Pure master-slave assignments.

    The Edit Pure Master-Slave Assignments dialog box appears. By default, when you select a surface from the list or the table, ABAQUS/CAE highlights the surface in the viewport; however, highlighting does not apply for (Global). You can toggle off Highlight selected regions at the bottom of the dialog box to turn off selection highlighting.

  4. Select one or more surfaces from the list of existing surfaces in the first column on the left side. Select (Global) to assign a pure master-slave weighting for contact between the entire contact domain and an individual surface.

  5. Select the second surface or surfaces from the list of existing surfaces in the second column to define the surface pairings.

    • When multiple surfaces are selected in either column, all possible combinations will be generated.

    • If the master and slave surfaces overlap, the overlapping regions are excluded from the contact domain.

  6. Click the arrows in the middle of the dialog box to transfer your selections to the list of master-slave assignments.

    The table on the right side of the dialog box is updated to reflect your selections.

  7. Specify the type for the first surface in the last column of the Master-Slave Assignments table.

    • Enter the word SLAVE to indicate the first surface is the slave surface (the default) or

    • enter the word MASTER to indicate the first surface is the master surface.

  8. Repeat the above steps as needed to complete the master-slave assignments.

  9. Click OK to save your selections and to close the Edit Pure Master-Slave Assignments dialog box. If you want to delete master-slave assignments, select the rows and click Delete Selected Rows.

    The interaction editor reappears with updated information on the number of pure master-slave assignments.

  10. Click OK to create the interaction and to close the editor.


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