Contact Modeling (Abaqus/CAE)

Hi,

I was performing a Static Analysis with a general contact model (tangential : frictionless, normal : hard and default enforcement) and few components tied with a tie constraint. I had performed a trial run with a very coarse mesh in order to check if the displacement and behavior is as expected and found it to be satisfactory. But when i refined the mesh and tried running the model with same BCs, loads and contacts, the model did not converge stating  "THE ESTIMATED CONTACT FORCE ERROR IS OUTSIDE OF CONVERGENCE TOLERANCES ". I edited the mesh and kept the mesh to be conformal at the contact interfaces. But the problem was still remaining.

I tried few methods found through web searches : Checking surface normals, inverting the master slave pair, turning Nlgeom on, reducing the initial step size, adding contact stabilization, refining mesh. 

Since the same BC and load had worked with a coarser model, could the problem be with choosing appropriate Contact formulation or could there be anything i might have missed.  


Let me know if any other information is required.