Contact management in knitted metal mesh through an adaptive node placing

The structural analysis of metal knitted meshes needs important computational resources due to non-linear behavior. The structures made of several filiform elements interlaced together often show large displacements and several contacts among yarns, so that they require advanced methods to predict their response. In this work, a contact-search algorithm between thin curved beams is presented. The contact recognition is based on the intersections between single elements to evaluate possible contact and its location. The method allows simplifying the 3D problem of contacts among wires into a 2D structure, easy to manage and model with a reduced computational cost. The filiform elements are modeled through a Wire Element, whose characteristic is to decouple its structural behavior – based on ending nodes – to its geometrical internal shape that is used for contact management. The Wire Element considers thin wires with circular sections. Its shape is entrusted to intrinsic geometry using a cubic polynomial function whose independent variable is the angle of the tangent to the curve. This approach is useful when analyzing complex structures such as meshes in which several loops are intertwined and subjected to contact activation during loading. Some examples to explain the method and its potential are shown.