Constraining Sliding Block

[breiter]

Hi all,

I'm wanting to run an FEA on the attached assembly. It consists of a wedge block which a load is applied, it slides in a track until it comes in contact with a block in which the load is transferred through. My question is how do I constrain the wedge assembly to mimic a sliding contact?

Thanks!

[sdensberger]

Depends on what question(s) you're interested in answering and how complex (and time consuming) of an analysis you want to do. Can you provide more detail? I ask because this could be something as simple as a hand calculation, or complex to require a FE model that'll take hours to run.

[breiter]

Thanks Shaun, I'm looking for a fairly detailed analysis. I'll try to explain a bit more detail...  ultimately I would like to know the stress in the top plate (#1). A load is applied to the face of the wedge, which can slide freely in the bottom plate until coming in contact with the block (#2). Was wondering what the best constrains would be to apply in this scenario.   Ive started running this in two steps. I first applied the load to the wedge, constrained the area that will be in contact (circled in blue). once I got this force, I started a new analysis hiding the wedge assembly, and applying the transferred load to block #2. this seems to be close to what id expect to see but I see when running the animation I see large interferences between block #1 and #2. I'm playing a bit with contacts and interfaces to see if this will eliminate this.

Again, any help is greatly appreciated.