How can I define contact to both sides of a flexible body that consists of shell elements?
If you would like to follow along with a sample RecurDyn model of this tutorial, please click the download link below:
RecurDyn uses ‘Patch Sets’ to define contacts with flexible body elements.
Consider the model above that consists of 2 bodies, named RigidBody and FFlexShellBody. The left edge of the flexible body is fixed, and the rigid body moves up and down. Consequently the cylinders in the rigid body make contact with the flexible body.
To define the two needed contacts, create 2 contact entities between SetPatch1 (shown in yellow) of FFlexShellBody and the RigidBody.Unite solid geometry.
When defining contacts to both sides of a mesh defined with shell elements you need two contacts, but the User Tip is that you can use the same patch set for both contacts. This is done by setting the normal direction of SetPatch1 of the first contact to UP, and the normal direction of SetPatch1 of the second contact to DOWN, as shown in the dialog boxes below. This simple method enables both sides of the flexible body to contact with the rigid body while only requiring the definition of a single patch set.
To view the motion of the sample model and a quick walk-through of the above explanation, please click the play button below: