[qwe11rty22]

Hey there, long time lurker here.

I am trying to build a problem up in complexity (expansion of stent, via displacement of two surfaces, into a piece of tissue).

Without tissue, the five crimping and expansion steps are shown here. The displacement surfaces are hidden for clarity. Contours are of stress. This is using an implicit analysis.

http://imgur.com/a/2ZLv8

I now want to add a piece of tissue to the analysis. However, the inner surface of the tissue is of smaller diameter than the initial start diameter of the stent, meaning that, the bodies will initially overlap, and that the crimping surface will have to pass through the tissue.

Possible Solutions:

1. Link two static structural analyses. The first for the crimp phase, then introduce the tissue region in the second. I can export the deformed geometry into another static structural analysis using the mechanical APDL component, however, I dont see how to import the strain state (which is key).

2. Using time stepping, use some function to turn on/off contact, whilst the mesh volumes initially overlap. I dont know if this is possible.

3. Use some command to turn off constraints, translate the geometry at the end of the crimp phase, and then turn them back on again. Again, not sure if this is possible.

In my head, the easiest solution would be to link two static structural analyses, as you do if you perform a pre stressed modal analysis. However, this is not possible, as far as I know.

Any ideas how to solve my problem?

David