Getting parts to interact After Displacement 1

[Svillefan08]

So I'm still pretty new to Catia, and am working through figuring it out how it works. So this may be an obvious answer question but:

I have an assembly that is deforming (small deformations) during static loading. During this deformation however, the different components of the assembly are not interacting with each other. In other words, one component of my assembly is going through another, rather than contacting it.

Is there any way in Catia to prevent penetration, and tell the program that pieces should interfere with each other if they contact?

Thanks

 

[franc11HD]

You need to define a contact connection between the parts. For this you need the GAS liscence of Catia for stress assembly. But the parts need to be close to each other. If they are really apart, then I am not sure it will detect the contact.

 

[Svillefan08]

Hm...I've tried defining a contact connection property on the parts that are penetrating... but I still see no interaction.

However, the contact connection property is being defined on a coincidence between two cylindrical item's axises. Would that cause the connection property to fail?

 

[franc11HD]

I never used the assembly properties to define stress constraints and have been told never to. (though I don't know exactly why)

I always start from scracth and define contact properties between surfaces.

May be you should try this.

 

[Svillefan08]

Interesting... Catia doesn't allow me to define contact properties directly between surfaces. If I try to select a surface as a support for the property it give me the no selection symbol (a black circle with a white hyphen).

I had thought this might be due to the fact that my part is an imported part from another Cad program (solidworks that was saved as an .stp file and then opened in catia) but I created a couple pieces in catia and try to connect them by their surfaces and it still does not let me select surfaces as a support for a contact property.

 

[franc11HD]

Did you create first a general analysis connection between the two surfaces and then assign this connection a contact properties using Catia GAS Module?

Even with step files, CAtia usually recognize the surfaces.

 

[Svillefan08]

Ah, ok I see. No I didn't make a General Analysis connection between the surfaces first. Thank you! That makes a lot more sense as far as designing a static analysis than doing everything through assembly connections.

Don't know how that important concept slipped past me, but thanks!