Hey everyone,

I am running a FE simulation in Abaqus where a cylinder (Bar) passes through a complex rolling path, imported from SolidWorks. The path bends and changes direction, requiring the rollers to rotate appropriately as the cylinder moves through.

The setup includes three rollers at each section, each rotating in different directions as their axis of rotation is different and shown with yellow. The rollers are modeled as discrete rigid bodies since I'm not focusing on their deformation or stress, and they are fixed in the x, y, and z directions. My focus is solely on the cylinder’s deformation and stress!

My main challenge is defining the boundary conditions so that the rollers rotate correctly as the cylinder moves through, accurately representing the real-life scenario. How should I set up these boundary conditions for each roller to mimic the actual operation?

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you.