Grouping Components in Contact

When your assembly includes components that make contact during motion, you can create two groups of components. You can then analyze component contact across the groups and ignore contact among components within the groups.

A contact group is treated as a single component in contact force calculations.

Create contact groups to reduce computation time for motion of assemblies with contact considerations.

To define contact groups in a Motion Analysis study:

  1. From a Motion Analysis study, click Contact Tool_3DContact.gif.
  2. In the PropertyManager, under Contact Type, click Solid Bodies Tool_3DContact.gif.
  3. Under Selections, click Use contact groups.
    The two group component selection fields appear.
  4. Select components for each contact group:
    • Click the selection field for the first group and select its components from the FeatureManager or the graphics area.
    • Click the selection field for the second group and select its components.

    The colors of selected components in the graphics area match the selection field color.

    The number of contact pairs across the two groups is displayed in the PropertyManager. The number of contact pairs is the product of the number of components in each group. The more contact pairs that appear, the longer the motion computation.

  5. Select other contact options and click to close the PropertyManager, or click Keep Visible before clicking to define more contact objects.

Contact Set Examples

It is possible you require more than one contact set.

For example:
  • A part moving on a roller table with 10 rollers. Define one contact set as a solid body contact group. The first group contains the 10 rollers, and the second group contains the lone part.
  • A group of 4 rubber balls inside a steel box. Define two contact sets:
    • The first set is a solid body contact group: The 4 balls are contained in one group and the box is in the other group.
    • The second set is a solid body contact set containing the four balls. When you create the contact set containing the 4 balls, create one set with 6 contacts and specify the material as rubber-rubber.