The contact stiffness defines nonlinear springs at several positions around the circumference. It is mainly thought to be used with 3D-elastic parts and elastic faces. The support can be connected to faces of type "elastic bearing". The springs act in a direction normal to the face, where it is defined on. For axial stiffness it is important to defined the correct diameter. The clearance is the clearance for a single spring, so for a radial contact it is based on the radius and not on the diameter.
The stiffness law can be defined in a table with forces for different displacements. The table has to start with values (0, 0). For displacements larger than the last values, the stiffness gets very large.
The spring positions can be defined using an angular position. If the clearance is not defined globally, a clearance can be defined for each spring individually. The 
-button allows to fill the table with equidistant springs.
