I am trying to simulate the indentation of a thin film by a conical indenter in Abaqus. I have already been able to do this using contact. Now I am trying to implement surface forces. I have read various other threads in this forum about this and have realized a few things:
1. I can do this by writing a UINTER subroutine which defines the contact constitutive law. This is a pretty in depth process which I am trying to stay away from.
2. I can use cohesive elements.
This I am not clear about. Do I put cohesive elements between the indenter and the flat surface? How do I define the surface attraction in as a function of the separation of the two surfaces? Is this even possible using the cohesive elements?
3. I can use spring elements? Can anyone give me a little bit more in depth explanation of this. I want to thank everyone in advance because I have found a lot of good information on this forum which has helped me with my research. So, I thank you! and I will be very thankful if someone can help me with these issues.
Thanks
Rez
I am curious, what type of surface forces are you trying to model? Is contact forces not enough?
-Jorgen