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General Troubleshooting
Model Description
3D large deflection of spring plate using a frictionless contact pair:
Spring plate
Flat rigid plate
One frictionless contact pair
This project contains a Design Modeler (DM) geometry file Spring_ws06A.agdb and a
Simulation (S) file Spring_ws06A.dsdb.
Request Newton-Raphson Residual feedback on the last three iterations of the run
Plot Displacement
Number Contacting
Penetration
Nonlinear Diagnostics
The run converged in one iteration!.
Nonlinear Diagnostics
Return to the Solution Information worksheet and examine the contact specifications closely.
Nonlinear Diagnostics
Return to the Details of Frictionless Contact Region window and specify the Interface Treatment
to Adjust to Touch. This option is very useful for small adjustments to close gaps and force a
closed contact status at the start of the analysis.
Nonlinear Diagnostics
After numerous iterations which
include three bisections to try to
overcome converge difficulties,
the solution ultimately fails to
converge.
Nonlinear Diagnostics
In order to achieve a successful convergence, it is necessary to determine the cause of the high
residual. One troubleshooting technique that can be useful (especially in very complex models
with multiple sources of nonlinearities) is a plot of the Newton-Raphson residual data. In this case,
we saved the last three iterations.
This plot indicates that the highest
Newton-Raphson residual is
located at the contact interface.
The cause of the convergence
difficulty is a contact normal
stiffness which is excessive
relative to the stiffness of the
underlying geometry. This makes
the model too sensitive to changes
in contact status at this location.
A smaller factor on contact (FKN)
stiffness combined with a refined
timestep size will prove to be very
helpful in reducing this residual
force and thereby enhancing
convergence.
Nonlinear Diagnostics
Return to the Details of Contact window and set:
Nonlinear Diagnostics
Furthermore, a closer inspection of this region indicates that contact may only be engaging at a
relatively few gauss points, aggravating convergence and, if nonlinear materials were active,
causing excessive element distortion errors in this location.
Nonlinear Diagnostics
To address this, insert strategic mesh sizing of 0.5mm to the curved surfaces associated
with the contact region , six faces total, 3 on each side of plate. The localized mesh
refinement adds more contact gauss point in this critical area thereby reducing the
iterations to convergence. It also enhances quality of results.
Nonlinear Diagnostics
Solution now converges in under 40 iterations without error and without any bisections.
Nonlinear Diagnostics
Post process results ...
Nonlinear Diagnostics
Note: Had we not refined the mesh and not included stiffness updating between
iterations, the solution would still have converged, but it would have taken many more
iterations and required bisections toward the end of the given displacement.
Also, because of the crude mesh, results at the contacting surface would not have been
as accurate.
Hence, even for models that
have successfully converged,
it is always good practice to
review the solution output
and look for opportunities to
enhance performance
(minimize run time) in future.