Chapter 47: Dynamic Impact of a Rigid Sphere on a Woven Fabric

Dynamic Impact of a Rigid

47 Sphere on a Woven Fabric


Summary 972

Introduction 973

Modeling Details 973

Solution Procedure 979

Results 980

Modeling Tips 982

Input File(s) 983

Video 983
972 MD Demonstration Problems
CHAPTER 47

Summary
Title Chapter 47: Dynamic Impact of a Rigid Sphere on a Woven Fabric
Features Beam-to-beam contact, beam-to-rigid contact, dynamic contact, bilinear Coulomb
friction model, isotropic elastic material, nonlinear property extensions to beam
elements
Geometry R = 1 cm

Material properties E = 10GPa ,  = 1500kg  m

3

Analysis characteristics Nonlinear transient analysis with adaptive time stepping and geometric nonlinearity due
to large displacements and large rotations
Boundary conditions Fabric is clamped on all four sides; sliding, frictional contact between the beam elements
of the fabric and between the fabric and the sphere.
Applied loads The rigid sphere hits the fabric at the center with an initial velocity of 100m  s .
Element type 2-node thin elastic beam element with transverse shear effects
FE results 1. Deformed shape and contact status
2. History plot of z-displacements of the rigid sphere
3. Frictional contact forces
 CHAPTER 47 973
Dynamic Impact of a Rigid Sphere on a Woven Fabric

Introduction
This example demonstrates the beam-to-beam contact capabilities of MD Nastran SOL 400. In contrast to the standard
grid-to-segment based contact, beam-to-beam contact is a true segment-to-segment contact, in which the beam
elements are able to touch each other at arbitrary locations mid-way between the grid points of the elements and can
slide along each other, with or without friction. The model consists of a woven fabric which is impacted by a rigid
sphere. The fabric is a plane weave and consists of 2  12 sinusoidally shaped yarns. It is clamped along the four sides
and the yarns are initially in contact at their intersections (see Figure 47-1). The total area of the fabric is 6  6 cm 2 . The
sphere, with a radius of 1cm and a mass density of 981.25 kg  m 3 , hits the fabric with an initial velocity of 100m  s at
the center.

R = 1 cm

Figure 47-1 Geometry of the Fabric with the Beam Elements Displayed with the True Cross Section

Modeling Details
A numerical solution has been obtained with MD Nastran’s SOL 400. The details of the finite element model, contact
simulation, material, load, boundary conditions, and solution procedure are discussed below.
The case control section of the input contains the following options for a nonlinear analysis:
BCONTACT = 0
SUBCASE 1
STEP 1
ANALYSIS=NLTRAN
TSTEPNL = 1
BCONTACT = 1
SPC = 1
IC = 2

The analysis is a nonlinear transient analysis and contains a single subcase with one step. The step has time stepping
procedure and convergence control settings defined via TSTEPNL, contact table and parameters via BCONTACT, fixed
displacements (or single point constraints) via SPC, initial velocity via IC, and the displacements results for
the .f06 (output) file.
Large displacement effects are included in the nonlinear analysis using the option:
974 MD Demonstration Problems
CHAPTER 47

PARAM LGDISP 2

The large strain option is activated for the nonlinear property extensions PBEMN1 to the beam elements, via the option:
NLMOPTS LRGSTRN 1

This option selects (among other things) the updated Lagrange formulation of these elements, which is needed for a
proper treatment of the large rotations of the beams.

Element Modeling
The yarns are modelled by 1440 2-node CBEAM elements with an elliptical cross section. The orientation vector v
that is used to construct the local element y- and z-directions of the beams points in the basic Y-direction for the yarns
in the basic X-direction and it points in the basic X-direction for the yarns in the basic Y-direction. The element y-
directions of the beams are thus parallel to the basic XY-plane. The major axis of the elliptical cross section coincides
with the element y-direction and is also parallel to the basic XY-plane. The minor axis coincides with the element z-
direction (see Figure 47-1 and Figure 47-2).

z-elem

b
a

y-elem

Figure 47-2 Elliptical Cross-Section of the Yarns

The semi-major and semi-minor axes of the cross section are a = 1.25mm and b = 0.5mm , so that the area and the
moments of inertia of the cross section read:
–6 2
A = ab = 1.9635  10 m , (47-1)

 3 – 13 4
I 1 = --- a b = 7.6699  10 m , (47-2)
4

 3 – 13 4
I 2 = --- ab = 1.2272  10 m . (47-3)
4
The cross-section properties for the yarns are defined via the PBEAM option as follows:
PBEAM* 1 1 1.963495408E-06 7.669903939E-13
* 1.227184630E-13 0.000000E+00 4.448544285E-13
* 0.000000E+00 0.000000E+00
*

in which the torsional stiffness of the beam elements is taken as J =  I 1 + I 2   2 .

 CHAPTER 47 975
Dynamic Impact of a Rigid Sphere on a Woven Fabric

The nonlinear extensions to the beam elements can be activated using the PBEMN1 property extension to the regular
PBEAM or PBEAML options in the manner shown below:
PBEMN1 1
LS

This PBEMN1 option selects a thin elastic beam element with transverse shear effects, which is similar to the standard
CBEAM element with only a PBEAM property, except that the former allows nonlinear material behavior, such as
plasticity effects, to be used for the beam elements. In this example, no nonlinear material effects are considered, but
the beam elements with and without the property extension will be compared in the elastic regime.

Modeling Contact
The standard contact algorithm of MD Nastran is based on a grid-to-segment approach. The grid points on the surface
of the touching (or slave) contact body can touch the segments on the surface of the touched (or master) contact body.
Here, the segments of a contact body are, for example, the faces of solid elements, the top and bottom surfaces of shell
elements, and the surface of a rigid contact body. The grid-to-segment algorithm works well for contact between solid,
shell and rigid contact bodies. It even works fine if the slave body consists of beam elements and the master is a solid,
shell or rigid contact body. In that case, the grid points of the beams can touch the segments on the surface of the solid,
shell or rigid body.
If both slave and master body consist of beam elements, then the grid-to-segment approach is not very convenient.
Beams generally touch each other somewhere in the middle of the element and not necessarily at the grid points. The
beam-to-beam contact algorithm of MD Nastran SOL 400 addresses this case. It is a true segment-to-segment contact
algorithm, in which the beam elements of the slave contact body can touch the beam elements of the master contact
body at arbitrary points mid-way between the grids of the elements. Moreover, beam elements which are in contact
can slide along each other with or without friction. The beam-to-beam contact algorithm is activated by the BEAMB
option to BCPARA. It supplements the standard grid-to-segment algorithm, that is, the grid points of a beam contact
body can touch the surface of solid, shell or rigid bodies through the grid-to-segment algorithm and, if beam-to-beam
contact is activated, then the beam elements can also touch beam elements of another (or the same) contact body.
The cross section of the beam elements is taken into account when two beam elements are coming in contact, but the
actual shape of cross-section, defined by PBEAM or PBEAML, for example, is ignored. Instead, a circular cross-section
is assumed for contact. The radius of the contact cross-section is called the “beam contact radius” and must be defined
via the BCBMRAD option. The beam contact radius is defined on a per element basis and may vary from element to
element. However, if a beam element is initially in contact with another beam element and during the analysis slides
off that element to a third beam element with a different contact radius, the sudden jump in the contact radius may lead
to convergence problems. Therefore, the contact surface of the beam elements of a contact body is smoothed by
averaging the beam contact radii of the elements at the common grid points. The resulting contact surface for a
sequence of beam elements is a piecewise conically shaped surface (see Figure 47-3). Note that the beam contact
radius is not used when the grid points of the beam element touch a solid, shell or rigid contact body.
976 MD Demonstration Problems
CHAPTER 47

Tr
Be u e
am (s
Co m
oo
nta th
ct ed
Ra )C
diu on
s= ta
0.1 ct
Su
5m rfa
m ce

Be
am
Co
nta
ct
Ra
diu
s=
0.1
0m
m

Figure 47-3 Conically Shaped (Smoothed) Contact Surface Obtained by Averaging the Beam Contact
Radii at the Grids

The present example contains three contact bodies. The first two bodies consist of the beam elements representing the
yarns in the basic X-direction and the beam elements representing the yarns in the basic Y-direction, respectively (see
Figure 47-1). The third contact body is the rigid sphere. The beam-to-beam contact algorithm is used to model contact
between the yarns. The standard grid-to-segment based contact algorithm handles contact between the grid points of
the yarns and the rigid sphere. Friction is included in the analysis, in the form of the force based, bilinear Coulomb
friction model (type 6).
The BCPARA bulk data option defines the number of bodies in contact and contact parameters like the friction type
FTYPE and the beam-to-beam contact flag BEAMB.
BCPARA 0 NBODIES 3 BEAMB 1 FTYPE 6

The deformable contact bodies are defined by the bulk data entries BCBODY and BSURF. The BCBODY option defines
the contact body with its ID, dimension, type of body etc. and BSURF identifies the elements forming the deformable
body.
$ yarns parallel to basic X-direction
BCBODY 1 3D DEFORM 1
BSURF 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15
16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31
…
$ yarns parallel to basic Y-direction
BCBODY 2 3D DEFORM 2
BSURF 2 61 62 63 64 65 66 67
68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75
76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83
84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91
…

Note that the dimension of the two deformable contact bodies is set to 3D even though the bodies consist of 1D beam
elements. This is because the contact body lives in 3D-space, that is, all grid points have 3 displacement degrees of
freedom.
 CHAPTER 47 977
Dynamic Impact of a Rigid Sphere on a Woven Fabric

The rigid sphere is defined as a load-controlled rigid contact body using a BCBODY bulk data option. The BCBODY
includes the NURBS surface definition of the sphere. The CONTROL field is set to the ID (1) of the control grid point
associated with the body. In contrast to a position or velocity controlled rigid body, the load-controlled body does not
have a prescribed motion. Instead, the displacement degrees of freedom of the control grid point are the displacements
of the rigid body and can be controlled by single point constraints or loads on the control grid point in the usual way.
In this example, the rigid body will be free to move in the basic Z-direction, while the motion in the other two
directions will be suppressed via single point constraints (see below).
The sphere is initially located in the positive Z-half space of the basic coordinate system, at some distance from the
fabric. During the initial contact search, the body will be moved towards the fabric, such that it just touches the fabric
at start of the first time step. This initial contact body approach is activated by the BCONTACT = 0 case control option.
During the approach, the rigid body is moved in the direction of the velocity defined by the APPROV section of the
BCBODY.
$ rigid sphere
BCBODY* 3 3D RIGID 0
* 0 0.00000000E+00 0 1
* 0 0.00000000E+00 0.00000000E+00 0.00000000E+00
* 1.00000000E+00
* RIGID 1 1sphere
*
* APPROV
* 0.00000000E+00 0.00000000E+00 -1.00000000E-02
* NURBS -5 9 3
* 3 24 48 0
$ control points
* 0.00000000E+00 -1.00000000E-02 1.20000000E-02
…

The rigid body represents a solid sphere with a mass density of 981.25 kg  m 3 , a radius of 1cm and a total mass of just
over four (4) grams. The mass of the sphere can conveniently be assigned to the load-controlled rigid body through a
concentrated mass element (CONM2) at the control grid point of the rigid contact body:
CONM2* 2000 1 4.1102503884E-3

To identify how the contact bodies can touch each other, the BCTABLE option is used. BCTABLE with ID 0 is used to
define the touching conditions at the start of the analysis, during the initial contact search and the contact body
approach. The BCTABLE with ID 1 is the main BCTABLE used to define the touching conditions for later time steps
in the analysis, and it is flagged using BCONTACT = 1 in the case control section. The two BCTABLEs are identical
and specify that the yarns parallel to the basic X-direction (contact body 1) can touch the yarns parallel to the basic Y-
direction (contact body 2) and that the grid points of both beam contact bodies can touch the rigid sphere (contact body
3). The BCTABLEs also define the friction coefficient (0.1) for all possible contact combinations.
$ contact table for initial rigid body approach
BCTABLE 0 2
SLAVE 1 0.10 0
0 0 0
MASTERS 2 3
SLAVE 2 0.10 0
0 0 0
MASTERS 3
978 MD Demonstration Problems
CHAPTER 47

$
$ main contact table
BCTABLE 1 2
SLAVE 1 0.10 0
0 0 0
MASTERS 2 3
SLAVE 2 0.10 0
0 0 0
MASTERS 3
The definition of the beam contact radii for the beam elements completes the contact set-up. The radii are defined via
the BCBMRAD option. This is a mandatory option if beam-to-beam contact is used. Since the beams generally will
touch each other in the direction of the minor axis of the elliptical cross-section of the beam elements (see
Figure 47-1), the beam contact radius is set equal to the semi-minor axis a for all beam elements in the model.
$ beam contact radius
BCBMRAD 5e-4 ALL

Material Modeling
The isotropic, Hookean elastic material properties of the deformable body are defined using the MAT1 option as
follows:
MAT1* 1 1.000000E+10 0.000000E+00
* 1.500000E+03 0.000000E+00

Young’s modulus is taken to be 10GPa and the mass density is set to 1500 kg  m 3 .

Loading and Boundary Conditions

The fabric is clamped at all four sides:
SPC1 1 123456 2 3 4 5 124 184
185 186 187 188 189 485 486 487
488 489 490 491 492 493 494 790
791 792 793 794 795 855 856 857
858 859 860 1156 1157 1158 1159 1160
1161 1162 1163 1164 1165 1461 1462 1463
1464 1465

The rigid sphere is allowed to move only in the basic Z-direction and is given an initial velocity in that direction
towards the fabric. As explained in the preceding section, the motion of the sphere is controlled by the displacements
of the control grid point of the body, so the displacements of the control grid in the basic X- and Y-direction are
suppressed,
SPC1 1 12 1
and the grid is given an initial velocity of 100m  s in the negative basic Z-direction via the TIC option.
TIC 2 1 3 -100.
The latter is selected via the IC case control option in the step.
 CHAPTER 47 979
Dynamic Impact of a Rigid Sphere on a Woven Fabric

Solution Procedure
The time-stepping procedure to be used is defined through the following TSTEPNL entry:
TSTEPNL 1 400 5e-7 PFNT UV
.100
0
In a dynamic contact analysis in MD Nastran SOL 400, the Generalized-Alpha operator with zero spectral radius is
automatically chosen by the program. The Generalized-Alpha operator uses two parameters NDAMP and NDAMPM in
its formulation. By varying the values of these parameters, the spectral radius can be varied from 0.0 to 1.0. For contact
problems, NDAMP is automatically taken as 0.0 and NDAMPM as 1.0, yielding a spectral radius of zero. This is well-
suited to damp out high frequencies that are normally excited during the impact process. Other features that are
automatically used by the dynamic contact algorithm to avoid high frequency content include the following: There is
no projection of the contacting segment onto the contacted segment. A contacting segment that falls within the distance
tolerance is simply constrained in its current position. Also, if there is penetration detected during the Newton-
Raphson iterations, the maximum penetration is used as a scale-back factor to reduce the time step and restart the
increment with the reduced time step.
The TSTEPNL entry controls the time stepping for the solution. Important parameters of the TSTEPNL entry are as
follows:
• ID (2nd field of entry 1) - The ID is used as a cross-reference in the case control section to identify the
TSTEPNL entry to be used for a particular step.
• NDT, DT, NO (3rd - 5th fields of entry 1) - These parameters control the total simulation time, the initial
analysis time step, the output frequency and the maximum possible time step. The product of NDT and DT
defines the total simulation time - in the current problem, the total simulation time comes out to be 2x10-4 s.
NO is left as blank in the current problem - the default value of NO is 1 - this implies that for this problem,
output is desired at every single step. In addition, the maximum time step cannot exceed NO times DT - which
means that for this problem, the maximum time step cannot exceed 5e-7s. In general, for impact problems,
given that the energy conversion (from kinetic energy to strain energy and vice-versa) occurs during very
small time intervals, it is important to keep tight control over the time-steps.
• METHOD, KSTEP (6th and 7th fields of entry 1) - In the present problem, METHOD is taken as PFNT. FNT or
PFNT is a recommended default for contact problems. PFNT denotes Pure Full Newton Technique wherein
the operator matrix is reformed at every iteration. KSTEP is left as blank in the present problem, which for the
PBEAM + PBEMN1 elements case will default to -1 and for the PBEAM case will default to 1. KSTEP = 1
indicates that the stiffness at the start of the next increment is taken to be the same as the stiffness at the last
iteration of the previous increment while KSTEP = -1 indicates that the stiffness is again updated at the start
of the next increment.
• CONV (9th field of entry 1) and EPSU (2nd field of entry 2) - In the present problem, this is taken as UV. U
indicates displacement control and V indicates the vector component method. The ratio of the maximum
iterative change in the displacement over the maximum incremental change in the displacement is calculated.
Convergence is established when this ratio is < EPSU (0.1 in the present problem). Note that, by default, for V
style checking, separate checks are made over translational degrees of freedom and over rotational degrees of
freedom. If the rotational check is deemed to be unnecessary, use can be made of the MDLPRM,MRCONV,N,
in which N is set to 2 or 3 to by-pass the rotation check.
980 MD Demonstration Problems
CHAPTER 47

• MAXBIS (2nd field of entry 3) - controls the maximum number of bisections allowed for each time step. In
the present problem, this number is set to 0. It should be noted that the penetration check and possible time-
step cutback is independent of the value of MAXBIS or DTBIS (the smallest bisection time possible).
• ADJUST (3rd field of entry 3) - controls the time step skip factor for automatic time step adjustment. The
blank field allows ADJUST to default to 5 in the present problem. A non-zero ADJUST value allows the
following additional checks at the end of an increment:
• After the first 2 increments wherein the user-given time-step is used, the analysis is restarted with either the
same time step or possibly a smaller time-step. If the prescribed time step violates frequency-based time
step estimates, then the first 2 increments are repeated with the program-evaluated time step. This restart
allows good accuracy at the start of the analysis if a high initial time step has been prescribed.
• At a frequency of every ADJUST increments, the dominant frequency of the system is estimated and is used
to evaluate the optimal time step. The number of steps (MSTEP) to resolve this dominant period can be
defined by the user (4th field of entry 3). MSTEP defaults to 10 (for mildly non-linear) and 20 (for highly
non-linear). The time step for subsequent increments is reduced by a factor of ½ or ¼ if the optimal time
step is smaller than the current time step. Similarly, the time step for subsequent increments is increased by
a factor of 2 or 4 if the optimal time step is larger than the current time step.
• The final optimal time step for the next increment is based on two algorithms - the frequency algorithm
(which allows both increase and decrease in time steps and is only checked when ADJUST > 0) and the
output algorithm (which is independent of the ADJUST value). After the frequency algorithm comes up
with predicted time step, the time step may again be adjusted such that it satisfies the frequency requirement
and becomes an even sub-multiple (1, 1/2, ¼, etc.) of the required output time. Note that if the time step is
reduced arbitrarily due to a penetration cutback, then the time steps for the next few increments may be
changed unevenly before they become regularized.

Results
Figure 47-4 shows the final deformed shape of the fabric in two views. The contact status is displayed as well. The
latter is 1 at the grid points of beam elements in contact and 0 otherwise and indicates that the yarns are in contact at
the crossings. The displacement in the basic Z-direction of the rigid sphere is plotted as a function of time in
Figure 47-5 for different friction coefficients and for standard beam elements with only a PBEAM property as well as
for beam elements with a PBEMN1 nonlinear extension. The first conclusion that can be drawn from this figure is the
fact that, in the elastic regime, the standard beam element and the beam element with the nonlinear extension give
basically the same results. The difference, of course, is that the beam element with PBEMN1 extension can also be
used with material non-linearities, such as plasticity effects. The second thing that stands out is the effect of the
friction. Due to friction, the yarns more-or-less stick to each other, so there is less sliding and the fabric behaves stiffer
than without friction. This can also be seen from Figure 47-6, in which the final deformed shapes are drawn for the
frictionless case and the case with friction.
 CHAPTER 47 981
Dynamic Impact of a Rigid Sphere on a Woven Fabric

Figure 47-4 Contact Status (red is touching) and Final Deformed Shape of the Fabric

Standard Beam and Beam

with nonlinear extension for
Friction Coefficient of 0.2

Standard Beam and Beam

with nonlinear extension for
Friction Coefficient of 0.1

Standard Beam and Beam

with nonlinear extension for
no Friction

Figure 47-5 Displacement of the Rigid Sphere in the Basic Z-direction

982 MD Demonstration Problems
CHAPTER 47

(a) (b)
Figure 47-6 Deformed Shape Without Friction (a) and With Friction Coefficient of 0.2 (b)

Modeling Tips
The beam-to-beam contact algorithm is a symmetric algorithm, in the sense that the same contact condition is found,
whether beam element A is touching beam element B, or element B is touching element A. This means that the choice
of the slave and master contact bodies on the BCTABLE entry is less important for beam-to-beam contact than it is for
the standard grid-to-segment based contact. For the latter, the proper choice of slave and master may be critical in
certain cases, particularly if the mesh densities of the bodies differ significantly.
In this chapter, no nonlinear material effects such as plasticity, are considered. The standard CBEAM element with only
a PBEAM or PBEAML property supports only elastic material behavior, but if the nonlinear extension PBEMN1 is used
in combination with the PBEAML property, nonlinear material effects can be taken into account. The PBEAML can then
refer to, for example, a MAT1 material with an associated MATEP entry, to include plasticity effects. Note that the shape
of the cross-section must be known to the program to be able to do the cross-section integration, required for nonlinear
material behavior. Therefore, a beam element with a PBEAM property cannot support nonlinear material effects, not
even with a PBEMN1 extension.
In the present problem, the output frequency NO is defined as 1. This causes output at every step and also prevents the
time step from increasing beyond the initial value (5e-7 seconds). In many contact / impact problems, it is beneficial
to have a time step value that does not exceed the user-prescribed initial time step value - however one may not desire
a NO value of 1 always since that may cause very large output file sizes. For such cases, a larger value of NO (NO =
5, 10, etc.) can be prescribed and ADJUST can be set to 0. The ADJUST = 0 setting forces the program to by-pass
the frequency check thereby preventing any time step increase and the output algorithm ensures that the time step is
regularized as quickly as possible and that output is produced whenever the time reaches NO times DT.
 CHAPTER 47 983
Dynamic Impact of a Rigid Sphere on a Woven Fabric

Input File(s)
File Description
nug_47a.dat MD Nastran input with standard beam element but without friction
nug_47ax.dat MD Nastran input with beam element with nonlinear extension PBEMN1 but without friction
nug_47b.dat MD Nastran input with standard beam element and friction
nug_47bx.dat MD Nastran input with beam element with nonlinear extension PBEMN1 and friction

Video
Click on the image or caption below to view a streaming video of this problem; it lasts approximately 30 minutes and
explains how the steps are performed.

R = 1 cm

Figure 47-7 Video of the Above Steps