Abaqus/Standard offers two contact discretization methods: a traditional node-to-surface method and a surface-to-surface method. The node-to-surface discretization method defines contact conditions between each slave node and the master surface. The surface-to-surface discretization method considers the shape of both the master and slave surfaces when defining the contact constraints. The contact pair algorithm can use either discretization method; general contact uses only the surface-to-surface approach.