Description: You can now extend the range for which Abaqus/Standard provides contact opening (COPEN) output for gaps between contact surfaces. By default, to keep contact search computational costs low, COPEN for finite-sliding, surface-to-surface contact and general contact is typically not provided where surfaces are opened by more than a small amount compared to surface facet dimensions. However, COPEN can now be provided for gap distances up to at least a user-specified “tracking thickness.”

Figure 11–5 compares two contour plots of COPEN output for a meshed sphere touching a flat plate (which is not shown) at a single point. The results shown on the left are based on an analysis with default tracking thickness, so COPEN is reported for a small region. The results shown on the right are based on an analysis with the tracking thickness set to 2.5, extending the region in which COPEN is reported. Using this control may increase computational costs due to extra contact tracking computations, especially if a large tracking thickness is specified.