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Contact modeling if substructures are present 37.3.9

Contact modeling if asymmetric-axisymmetric elements are present 37.3.10

# Defining general contact in Abaqus/Explicit

Defining general contact interactions in Abaqus/Explicit 37.4.1

Assigning surface properties for general contact in Abaqus/Explicit 37.4.2

Assigning contact properties for general contact in Abaqus/Explicit 37.4.3

Controlling initial contact status for general contact in Abaqus/Explicit 37.4.4

Contact controls for general contact in Abaqus/Explicit 37.4.5

# Defining contact pairs in Abaqus/Explicit

Defining contact pairs in Abaqus/Explicit 37.5.1

Assigning surface properties for contact pairs in Abaqus/Explicit 37.5.2

Assigning contact properties for contact pairs in Abaqus/Explicit 37.5.3

Adjusting initial surface positions and specifying initial clearances for contact pairs in Abaqus/Explicit 37.5.4

Contact controls for contact pairs in Abaqus/Explicit 37.5.5

# 38. Contact Property Models

# Mechanical contact properties

Mechanical contact properties: overview 38.1.1

Contact pressure-overclosure relationships 38.1.2

Contact damping 38.1.3

Contact blockage 38.1.4

Frictional behavior 38.1.5

User-defined interfacial constitutive behavior 38.1.6

Pressure penetration loading 38.1.7

Interaction of debonded surfaces 38.1.8

Breakable bonds 38.1.9

Surface-based cohesive behavior 38.1.10

# Thermal contact properties

Thermal contact properties 38.2.1

# Electrical contact properties

Electrical contact properties 38.3.1

# Pore fluid contact properties

Pore fluid contact properties 38.4.1

# 39. Contact Formulations and Numerical Methods

# Contact formulations and numerical methods in Abaqus/Standard

Contact formulations in Abaqus/Standard 39.1.1

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Contact constraint enforcement methods in Abaqus/Standard 39.1.2

Smoothing contact surfaces in Abaqus/Standard 39.1.3

# Contact formulations and numerical methods in Abaqus/Explicit

Contact formulation for general contact in Abaqus/Explicit 39.2.1

Contact formulations for contact pairs in Abaqus/Explicit 39.2.2

Contact constraint enforcement methods in Abaqus/Explicit 39.2.3

# 40. Contact Difficulties and Diagnostics

# Resolving contact difficulties in Abaqus/Standard

Contact diagnostics in an Abaqus/Standard analysis 40.1.1

Common difficulties associated with contact modeling in Abaqus/Standard 40.1.2

# Resolving contact difficulties in Abaqus/Explicit

Contact diagnostics in an Abaqus/Explicit analysis 40.2.1

Common difficulties associated with contact modeling using contact pairs in Abaqus/Explicit 40.2.2

# 41. Contact Elements in Abaqus/Standard

# Contact modeling with elements

Contact modeling with elements 41.1.1

# Gap contact elements

Gap contact elements 41.2.1

Gap element library 41.2.2

# Tube-to-tube contact elements

Tube-to-tube contact elements 41.3.1

Tube-to-tube contact element library 41.3.2

# Slide line contact elements

Slide line contact elements 41.4.1

Axisymmetric slide line element library 41.4.2

# Rigid surface contact elements

Rigid surface contact elements 41.5.1

Axisymmetric rigid surface contact element library 41.5.2

# 42. Defining Cavity Radiation in Abaqus/Standard

# Defining cavity radiation

Cavity radiation 42.1.1

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# Part I: Introduction, Spatial Modeling, and Execution

• Chapter 1, “Introduction”   
• Chapter 2, “Spatial Modeling”   
• Chapter 3, “Job Execution”

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# 1. Introduction

Introduction 1.1

Abaqus syntax and conventions 1.2

Abaqus model definition 1.3

Parametric modeling 1.4

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# 1.1 Introduction

• “Introduction: general,” Section 1.1.1

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# 1.1.1 INTRODUCTION: GENERAL

# Overview of the Abaqus finite element system

The Abaqus finite element system includes:

• Abaqus/Standard, a general-purpose finite element program;   
• Abaqus/Explicit, an explicit dynamics finite element program;   
• Abaqus/CFD, a general-purpose computational fluid dynamics program;   
• Abaqus/CAE, an interactive environment used to create finite element models, submit Abaqus analyses, monitor and diagnose jobs, and evaluate results; and   
• Abaqus/Viewer, a subset of Abaqus/CAE that contains only the postprocessing capabilities of the Visualization module.

Several add-on options are available to further extend the capabilities of Abaqus/Standard and Abaqus/Explicit. The Abaqus/Aqua option works with Abaqus/Standard and Abaqus/Explicit. The Abaqus/Design and Abaqus/AMS options work with Abaqus/Standard. Abaqus/Aqua contains optional features that are specifically designed for the analysis of beam-like structures installed underwater and subject to loading by water currents and wave action. The Abaqus/Design option enables you to perform design sensitivity analysis (DSA). Abaqus/AMS is an optional eigensolver that works within Abaqus/Standard providing very fast solution of large symmetric eigenvalue problems. The Abaqus co-simulation technique provides several applications, available as separate add-on capabilities, for coupling between Abaqus and third-party analysis programs. Abaqus/Foundation is an optional subset of Abaqus/Standard that provides more cost-efficient access to the linear static and dynamic analysis functionality in Abaqus/Standard. These options are available only if your license includes them.

For a comprehensive list of Abaqus products, utilities, and add-on options, see “Abaqus products,” Section 1.2 of the Abaqus Release Notes.

# Overview of this guide

This guide is a reference to using Abaqus/Standard (including Abaqus/Aqua, Abaqus/Design, and Abaqus/Foundation), Abaqus/Explicit (including Abaqus/Aqua), and Abaqus/CFD. Abaqus/Standard solves a system of equations implicitly at each solution “increment.” In contrast, Abaqus/Explicit marches a solution forward through time in small time increments without solving a coupled system of equations at each increment (or even forming a global stiffness matrix). Abaqus/CFD provides a computational fluid dynamics capability with extensive support for preprocessing, simulation, and postprocessing in Abaqus/CAE.

Throughout the guide the term Abaqus is most commonly used to refer collectively to both Abaqus/Standard and Abaqus/Explicit and, when applicable, Abaqus/CFD; the individual product names are used to indicate when information applies to only that product. Product identifiers appear

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at the beginning of each section in the guide (excluding overview sections) indicating the products to which the information in the section applies.

The guide is divided into several parts:

• Part I, “Introduction, Spatial Modeling, and Execution,” discusses basic modeling concepts in Abaqus, such as defining nodes, elements, and surfaces; the conventions and input formats that should be followed when using Abaqus; and the execution procedures for Abaqus/Standard, Abaqus/Explicit, Abaqus/CFD, Abaqus/CAE, and several utilities that are provided with the Abaqus system.   
• Part II, “Output,” describes how to obtain output from Abaqus and the format of the results (.fil) file. It also describes the output variable identifiers that are available.   
• Part III, “Analysis Procedures, Solution, and Control,” describes the analysis types (static stress analysis, dynamics, eigenvalue extraction, etc.) that are available. Detailed discussions of the differences between how Abaqus/Standard and Abaqus/Explicit solve finite element analyses are provided in this chapter.   
• Part IV, “Analysis Techniques,” discusses various analysis techniques available in Abaqus such as submodeling, removing elements or surfaces, and importing results from a previous simulation to define the initial conditions for the current model.   
• Part V, “Materials,” describes the material modeling options and how to calibrate some of the more advanced material models.   
• Part VI, “Elements,” describes the elements available in Abaqus.   
• Part VII, “Prescribed Conditions,” describes the use of prescribed conditions, such as distributed loads and nodal velocities.   
• Part VIII, “Constraints,” discusses the use of constraints, such as multi-point constraints.   
• Part IX, “Interactions,” discusses the contact and interaction models available in Abaqus.

The guide also includes indexes of all of the output variables and elements available in Abaqus/Standard, Abaqus/Explicit, and Abaqus/CFD.

# Using Abaqus

Abaqus/Standard, Abaqus/Explicit, and Abaqus/CFD can be run as batch applications (see “Abaqus/Standard, Abaqus/Explicit, and Abaqus/CFD execution,” Section 3.2.2, for details) or through the interactive Abaqus/CAE environment (see “Abaqus/CAE execution,” Section 3.2.7, for details on how to start Abaqus/CAE). The main input to the Abaqus/Standard, Abaqus/Explicit, and Abaqus/CFD analysis products is a file containing the options required for the simulation and the data associated with those options. There may also be supplementary files, such as restart or results files from previous analyses, or auxiliary data files, such as a file containing an acceleration record or an earthquake record for dynamic analysis. The input file is usually created by Abaqus/CAE or another preprocessor. Both input file usage and Abaqus/CAE usage information are provided in this guide.

As described in “Defining a model in Abaqus,” Section 1.3.1, the main input file consists of two sections: model input and history input. The input is organized around a few natural concepts and conventions, which means that even though input files for complex simulations can be large, they can
