Specifying cohesive behavior properties for mechanical contact property options

You can define cohesive behavior properties that are accounted for in surface contact interactions. For more information, see Contact Cohesive Behavior.

Context:

In addition, you complete the definition of a crack propagation capability by defining a fracture-based cohesive behavior surface interaction. You activate the crack propagation by assigning it to the pair of surfaces that are initially partially bonded. If the fracture criterion is met, crack propagation occurs between these two surfaces. Cohesive behavior is also used to specify the elastic behavior of the bonds.

  1. From the main menu bar, select InteractionPropertyCreate.
  2. In the Create Interaction Property dialog box that appears, do the following:

  3. Click Continue to close the Create Interaction Property dialog box.
  4. From the menu bar in the contact property editor, select MechanicalCohesive Behavior.
  5. Toggle on Allow cohesive behavior during repeated post-failure contacts to modify the default post-failure behavior when progressive damage has been defined. By default, cohesive behavior is not enforced for nodes on the secondary surface once ultimate failure has occurred at those nodes. When this option is toggled on, Abaqus/CAE enforces cohesive behavior for recurrent contacts at nodes on the secondary surface subsequent to ultimate failure.
  6. From the Eligible Secondary Nodes options, select one of the following:

    • Select Any secondary nodes experiencing contact to define cohesive behavior not only for all nodes of the secondary surface that are in contact with the main surface at the start of a step, but also for secondary nodes that are not initially in contact but may come in contact during the course of a step.

    • Select Only secondary nodes initially in contact to restrict cohesive behavior to only those nodes of the secondary surface that are in contact with the main surface at the start of a step.

    • Select Specify the bonding node set in the surface-to-surface Std interaction to restrict cohesive behavior to a subset of secondary nodes defined when you specify initial bonded contact conditions. This option is available only for Abaqus/Standard analyses.

  7. From the Traction-separation Behavior options, accept the default contact penalty enforcement method or toggle on Specify stiffness coefficients and perform the following additional steps:
    1. Specify whether you want to specify stiffness coefficients for Uncoupled or Coupled traction behavior.
    2. Toggle on Use temperature-dependent data if the traction-separation behavior is dependent on temperature.
    3. Click the arrows to the right of the Number of field variables field to specify the number of field variables on which the traction-separation behavior depends.
    4. Enter the required data in the data table provided.
  8. Click OK to create the contact property and to exit the Edit Contact Property dialog box. Alternatively, you can select another contact property option to define from the menus in the Edit Contact Property dialog box.