Extracting a pressure distribution from contact

[smyth13]

After performing a contact analysis, I would like to extract the applied pressure distribution on the contacted surface for use as an applied load on a different component with an identical contact surface. The nodal locations will not necessarily be identical. Is there a method for obtaining this information?

I want to use these contact pressures as my input loads for the other design iterations to reduce my computation time. Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[cbrn]

Hi,
no, if the nodal location aren't the same there is no way (with any FEM program, however) to map the contact pressure results from one model to another.
You would have to write your own interpolation routines.

The "radical" solution to extremely complex and "heavy" models which would never fit in memory "as a whole", is the "substructuring" process. It is well explained in the Manual, but I find it really difficult to properly setup.

Regards