Abaqus Verification Guide

The Abaqus Verification Guide contains a large number of test cases that provide evidence that the implementation of the numerical model produces the expected results for one or several well-defined options in the code. The test cases are sufficiently small that they can be executed efficiently while producing results that can be compared to independently calculated solutions or experimental results.

This guide is a part of the Abaqus® documentation collection, which describes all the capabilities of the Abaqus finite element analysis technology used in SIMULIA® applications.

In addition to this guide, there are two other guides that contain worked problems. The Abaqus Benchmarks Guide contains benchmark problems that provide evidence that the software can produce a result from a benchmark defined by an external body or institution such as NAFEMS. The tests in this guide are sufficient to show accuracy and convergence compared to benchmark data. The Abaqus Example Problems Guide contains many solved examples from which users can learn how to run simulations involving nontrivial physics.

The qualification process for new Abaqus releases includes running and verifying results for all problems in this guide, the Abaqus Example Problems Guide, and the Abaqus Benchmarks Guide.

It is important that a user become familiar with this guide, the Abaqus Example Problems Guide, and the Abaqus Benchmarks Guide before any analysis is done to determine the level of verification that has been done of the capabilities that will be used. The user should then decide whether any additional verification is necessary before starting the analysis.

Input files referred to in the guides are included with the Abaqus release in compressed archive files. To reproduce the graphical representation of the solution reported in some of the problems, modifications to various options (such as step time, display options, output requests, solver precision, output frequency, etc.) may be required.

The abaqus fetch utility is used to extract these input files for use. For example, to fetch input file ec12afe1.inp for Eigenvalue extraction for single unconstrained elements, type 

abaqus fetch job=ec12afe1.inp

Parametric study script (.psf) and user subroutine (.f) files can be fetched in the same manner. All files for a particular problem can be obtained by leaving off the file extension. The abaqus fetch utility is explained in detail in Fetching Sample Input Files.

It is sometimes useful to search the input files. The findkeyword utility is used to locate input files that contain user-specified input. This utility is defined in Querying the Keyword/Problem Database.