Compatibility between Abaqus/Standard and Abaqus/Explicit

There are fundamental differences in the mechanical contact algorithms in Abaqus/Standard and Abaqus/Explicit. These differences are reflected in how contact conditions are defined. The main differences are the following:

  • For contact pairs Abaqus/Standard typically uses a pure main-secondary relationship for the contact constraints by default (see About Contact Pairs in Abaqus/Standard); the nodes of the secondary surface are constrained not to penetrate into the main surface. The nodes of the main surface can, in principle, penetrate into the secondary surface. Abaqus/Explicit includes this formulation but typically uses a balanced main-secondary weighting by default (see Contact Formulations for Contact Pairs in Abaqus/Explicit).

  • The contact formulations in Abaqus/Standard and Abaqus/Explicit differ in many respects due to different convergence, performance, and numerical requirements.

  • The constraint enforcement methods in Abaqus/Standard and Abaqus/Explicit differ in some respects. For example, both Abaqus/Standard and Abaqus/Explicit provide penalty constraint methods, but the default penalty stiffnesses differ.

  • Abaqus/Standard and Abaqus/Explicit both provide a small-sliding contact formulation (see Contact Formulations in Abaqus/Standard and Contact Formulations for Contact Pairs in Abaqus/Explicit). However, the small-sliding contact formulation in Abaqus/Standard transfers the load to the main nodes according to the current position of the secondary node. Abaqus/Explicit always transfers the load through the anchor point.

As a result of these differences, contact definitions specified in an Abaqus/Standard analysis cannot be imported into an Abaqus/Explicit analysis and vice versa (see Transferring Results between Abaqus/Explicit and Abaqus/Standard).