Original author(s) Development status Actively developed | Developer(s) ABAQUS Inc., | |
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Stable release 2016 Update 05.1 / September 2016; 5 months ago (2016-09) Operating system Platform Windows/x86-32Windows/x86-64Linux x86-64 | ||
Abaqus FEA (formerly ABAQUS) is a software suite for finite element analysis and computer-aided engineering, originally released in 1978. The name and logo of this software are based on the abacus calculation tool. The Abaqus product suite consists of five core software products:
Contents
- Abaqus/CAE, or "Complete Abaqus Environment" (a backronym with an obvious root in Computer-Aided Engineering). It is a software application used for both the modeling and analysis of mechanical components and assemblies (pre-processing) and visualizing the finite element analysis result. A subset of Abaqus/CAE including only the post-processing module can be launched independently in the Abaqus/Viewer product.
- Abaqus/Standard, a general-purpose Finite-Element analyzer that employs implicit integration scheme (traditional).
- Abaqus/Explicit, a special-purpose Finite-Element analyzer that employs explicit integration scheme to solve highly nonlinear systems with many complex contacts under transient loads.
- Abaqus/CFD, a Computational Fluid Dynamics software application which provides advanced computational fluid dynamics capabilities with extensive support for preprocessing and postprocessing provided in Abaqus/CAE.
- Abaqus/Electromagnetic, a Computational electromagnetics software application which solves advanced computational electromagnetic problems.
The Abaqus products use the open-source scripting language Python for scripting and customization. Abaqus/CAE uses the fox-toolkit for GUI development.
Applications
Abaqus is used in the automotive, aerospace, and industrial products industries. The product is popular with academic and research institutions due to the wide material modeling capability, and the program's ability to be customized. Abaqus also provides a good collection of multiphysics capabilities, such as coupled acoustic-structural, piezoelectric, and structural-pore capabilities, making it attractive for production-level simulations where multiple fields need to be coupled.
Abaqus was initially designed to address non-linear physical behavior; as a result, the package has an extensive range of material models such as elastomeric (rubberlike) material capabilities.
Here are some animated examples
Solution Sequence
Every complete finite-element analysis consists of 3 separate stages:
Abaqus/CAE is capable of pre-processing, post-processing, and monitoring the processing stage of the solver; however, the first stage can also be done by other compatible CAD software, or even a text editor. Abaqus/Standard, Abaqus/Explicit or Abaqus/CFD are capable of accomplishing the processing stage. Dassault Systemes also produces Abaqus for CATIA for adding advanced processing and post processing stages to a pre-processor like CATIA.
Solvers Comparison
The following is a comparison between the solver capabilities of Abaqus/Standard and Abaqus/Explicit.
^* The more complex the contacts become, the more repetitive calculations ABAQUS/Standard has to solve, and the more time and disk space needed; ABAQUS Explicit is the optimal choice in this case
^** Like static elements (see the picture,) dynamic elements, thermal elements and electrical elements
^ ^*** Steady, Static and Constant loads are the same. Transient loads include: quasi-static loads (slowly varying loads in which the effect of inertial is small enough to neglect) and dynamic loads (faster varying loads).