I am glad to announce that the latest version of LS-DYNA will support the use of *DEFINE_CONTACT_VOLUME in any *SET_{OPTION}_GENERAL keyword. As most of you know, *DEFINE_CONTACT_VOLUME offers many advantages over *DEFINE_BOX such as definition in a local system and multiple shapes such as sphere, ellipse, box, and cylinder.

With this support, my earlier post on subsystem swapping will be much easier.

The various options are as shown below:

Defining *set using *define_contact_volume
• Users now can use contact_volume to define *set_node, *set_segment or
*set_any_element.
• Angle definitions in *define_contact_volume, D_ANGC and D_ANGS, is ignored
when that contact_volume is used to define *set
Input example description:
*SET_NODE_GENERAL
Card2 OPTION A1 A2 A3 A4 A5 A6 A7
Type A F F F F F F F
OPTION can now be:
VOL: all nodes inside the specified contact_volume will be included in this nodal
set
DVOL: all nodes inside the specified contact_volume will be excluded from this
nodal set
*SET_SEGMENT_GENERAL
Card2 OPTION A1 A2 A3 A4 A5 A6 A7
Type A F F F F F F F
OPTION can now be:
VOL: generates segments inside contact volumes
DVOL: all nodes inside the specified contact_volume will be excluded from this
segment set
VOL_SHELL: please refer to BOX_SHELL in the table on page 27.18 of users
manual
VOL_SLDIO,....
VOL_SOLID.....
DVOL_SHELL
DVOL_SOLID
*SET_SHELL_GENERAL, *SET_SOLID_GENERAL,......
Card2 OPTION A1 A2 A3 A4 A5 A6 A7
Type A F F F F F F F
OPTION can now be:
VOL: elements inside contact volumes
DVOL: all elements inside the specified contact_volume will be excluded from
this element set

Thanks to Isheng Yeh of LSTC for a speedy implementation!