Abaqus/CAE

This page describes recent changes in Abaqus/CAE.

2024 GA

Render Styles in Plots for Continuum Particle Elements

Abaqus/CAE now supports visualization of element particle edges with wireframe, hidden, filled, and shaded render styles (View > ODB Display Options).
Benefits: The ability to assign different render styles makes it easier to distinguish between continuum particle elements.
This feature is available only if you have an appropriate role.
Related topics: Output, Output, and Controlling the display of model entities.

Step-Dependent General Contact

Abaqus/CAE now supports the definition of general contact in Abaqus/Standard in any analysis step or in the initial step.
Benefits: Defining general contact in analysis steps enables definition of more complex contact behaviors in Abaqus/Standard simulations.
This feature is available only if you have an appropriate role.
Related topics: Defining general contact and About General Contact in Abaqus/Standard.

Contact Mass Scaling

Abaqus/CAE now supports the definition of contact mass scaling in Abaqus/Explicit.
Benefits: Contact mass scaling can reduce the number of increments required for Abaqus/Explicit simulations that use nondefault penalty stiffness.
This feature is available only if you have an appropriate role.
You can apply mass scaling to the contact surfaces or elements involved in the contact definition. Contact mass scaling reduces the impact of higher-than-default contact penalty stiffness on the global stable time increment in an Abaqus/Explicit analysis by increasing the mass associated with the contact surfaces.
Related topics: Defining contact mass scaling and *CONTACT MASS SCALING.

Channel and Hat Section Profiles

You can now define channel and hat section profiles in the Property module.
Benefits: The addition of channel and hat profiles simplifies the specification of these common beam cross-sections in Abaqus/CAE.
This feature is available only if you have an appropriate role.
Related topics: Defining a channel profile, Defining a hat profile, ChannelProfile object, HatProfile object, and Beam cross-section analysis.

Beam Section Offset for *BEAM SECTION

Abaqus/CAE now supports the definition of a beam section offset for beam sections integrated during the analysis (*BEAM SECTION).
Benefits: Beam offsets allow greater flexibility when modeling with beam elements in Abaqus/CAE.
This feature is available only if you have an appropriate role.
Earlier releases of Abaqus/CAE supported beam section offsets only for *BEAM GENERAL SECTION.
Related topics: *BEAM SECTION, Using a Beam Section Integrated during the Analysis to Define the Section Behavior, and BeamSection object.

Rotational Couplings

You can now define a rotational coupling type in discrete fasteners and coupling constraints in Abaqus/CAE.
Benefits: Defining the rotational coupling type gives you greater control over the behavior of distributing couplings involving cloud nodes with rotational degrees of freedom.
This feature is available only if you have an appropriate role.
Related topics: *DISTRIBUTING, Creating discrete fasteners, and Defining coupling constraints.

Using the Linearized Contact Capability to Solve for Contact Status and Contact Stresses

Abaqus/CAE now supports the activation of the linearized contact capability to solve for contact status and contact stresses within a static perturbation step with small-sliding, frictionless contact.
Benefits: The Linear Complementarity Problem (LCP) solution technique provides a faster solution for certain classes of contact problem.
This feature is available only if you have an appropriate role.
Related topics: Configuring a static, linear perturbation procedure and *SOLUTION TECHNIQUE.