A brief introduction on how to read an ABAQUS R input file

Matheus C. Fernandes, Katia Bertoldi, and James R. Rice

October 9, 2015

1. Introduction the line is a comment. All of the lines that contain com-
ments are ignored by the computer and serve only one
When generating a model using the ABAQUS R GUI, you purpose – to inform a person reading the .inp file. An
create a set of instructions for the interpreter to gener- important note on comments is that you cannot have any
ate what is called an input file (that has a file extension empty lines in your input file. If you want an empty line
.inp ). When executing the model (or submitting the you must make that line a comment by using double as-
’Job’), you submit this input file to the solver which inter- terisks. A single asterisk * on the other hand, indicates
prets how to run the job based on the set of instructions the beginning of a command, namely *HEADING indicates
contained in the file. that the line after that will contain the title of the output
files created by ABAQUS R . Note that the interpreter is
In this manual, we will go over the different parts of not sensitive to capitalization, thus, in general, you do
what you will find in the .inp file and how you can in- not have to worry about case in input files. The exception
terpret each part of the code. In particular, this can be is with the use of parameter, (not used in this example),
helpful for understanding the model that you have gener- where parameter names are case sensitive.
ated or when you want to read the input file and generate
a model yourself (or use the same model to do an analysis Furthermore, an important thing to note about
in a different program). ABAQUS R is that it does not have a built-in system of
units, thus all input data must be specified in a consis-
tent manner. For the example covered in this manual,
the units used would be consistent for Steel with forces
2. Example Description measured in [lbf] and lengths in [in].
In this document we will go over a simple input file for a
three bar truss system as seen in fig. 1.

Ux=-0.3 Ux=Uy=0 Ux=Uy=0 4. More Specific Syntax

Uy=0 N1 N2 N3
10

9 4.1 Heading Information

8
E2 E3
E1 MatB The *HEADING command will appear on any out-
7 MatA
MatA put file created by ABAQUS R . The heading passed
6
on to the interpreter will then generate output
5 files .odb with this title. Therefore, the script
4
seen below would generate an output file named
Three Bar Truss: ES128 Example Problem.odb . Also note
3
that we have created a large commented section before
2 the actual command to give the reader information about
1 the code. All lines in the code are either commented or
0
N4 contain definition/ values.
2 4 6 8 10 12
CLoad=-10 1 **
2 **
Figure 1: Structure generated from this example input file. 3 *********************************************
The nodes are indicated in red and the line elements in black. 4 **
5 ** heading information
6 **
7 *********************************************
3. General Syntax 8 **
9 *HEADING
The first thing you will notice when you open an .inp file 10 Three Bar Truss: ES128 Example Problem
is that there are asterisks everywhere in the file. That 11 **
is because double asterisks ** (at the left) indicate that
1/3
October 9, 2015 Fernandes, Bertoldi, and Rice 4. More Specific Syntax

4.2 Node Definitions 4.5 Material Definitions

The node definition gives the location of the nodal points. In order to run the different modules in ABAQUS R , you
In this example, these points correspond to the ”joints” will need to define sets of material properties specific to
of the truss system. The first entry is the node number, that model. For the sake of this example, we will focus
which is a reference point, and the next entries are the on running a fully linear elastic problem with a global
x,y, and z coordinates, respectively. Note that for this 2D cross-section area of 0.1, but we will define two different
problem the z component is omitted. Thus, the order for materials for the element sets we created. Here, material
the example script below is: node number, x coordinate, A will have a Young’s modulus of 1000.0 and material B
and y coordinate. will have a Young’s modulus of 1500.0. Note that we did
not define a Poisson ratio, as this is irrelevant to the 1
1 ** dimensional problem.
2 *NODE
3 1, 5.0, 10.0 1 **
4 2, 7.5, 10.0 2 *SOLID SECTION, ELSET=MATERIALA, MATERIAL=MAT1
5 3, 10.0, 10.0 3 0.1
6 4, 10.0, 0.0 4 *MATERIAL, NAME=MAT1
7 ** 5 *ELASTIC
6 1000.0
7 **
8 *SOLID SECTION, ELSET=MATERIALB, MATERIAL=MAT2
9 0.1
4.3 Element Definitions 10 *MATERIAL, NAME=MAT2
11 *ELASTIC
Next, the elements (corresponding to truss bars in this 12 1500.0
13 **
case) are defined. Also, the type of element, from the
element library available within ABAQUS R , is defined.
The first number shown is the element number, and the
next two are the two nodes which that element joins. The 4.6 Defining Step
set of elements is given the name ”BARS.” Note that this
Now we describe the loading, in this case as a single
is a 2D element type (T2D2). For different element types
*STEP . Since this involves linear elastic material and we
you will encounter more or less number of nodes, depend-
are content to neglect any effects of geometry change, due
ing on how many nodes are contained in the given ele-
to deformation, on the writing of the equilibrium equa-
ment you specify.
tions, our problem is a completely linear one. We indicate
1 ** that NLGEOM=NO to indicate that this is a linear step.
2 *ELEMENT, TYPE=T2D2, ELSET=BARS
3 1, 4, 1 1 **
4 2, 4, 2 2 *STEP, NAME=STEP-1,NLGEOM=NO
5 3, 4, 3 3 *STATIC
6 ** 4 **

4.7 Boundary Conditions

4.4 Defining Sets Next, come statements about prescribed displacements.
The node number is given first, and then the first and
In ABAQUS R we can create sets for different parts of the last degree of freedom that is prescribed at the node –
geometry in order to assign these parts boundary condi- displacements UX, UY, and UZ are zero in this case. It
tions or specific material property. The following exam- was not really necessary to mention UZ, since the prob-
ple illustrates the creation of two element sets using the lem is set up as 2D. For node 1, however, we prescribe
*ELSET command. The first set is named ”MateralA” and a displacement of -0.3 in the x direction and 0 in the y
is composed of elements 1 and 2. The second element set direction.
is named ”MaterialB” and only contains element 3.
1 **
1 ** 2 *BOUNDARY
2 *ELSET, ELSET=MATERIALA 3 1, 1, 1, -0.3
3 1, 2, 4 1, 2, 2, 0.0
4 *ELSET, ELSET=MATERIALB 5 2, 1, 2, 0.0
5 3 6 3, 1, 2, 0.0
6 ** 7 **

2/3
October 9, 2015 Fernandes, Bertoldi, and Rice 4. More Specific Syntax

4.8 Loads
The following specifies that a concentrated load, <Load> ,
which was defined above as -10000 in the units adopted,
is applied in the y direction at node 4 (i.e., 10000 is ap-
plied in the negative y direction).

1 **
2 *CLOAD
3 4, 2, -10.0
4 **

4.9 Output Requests

Note about output: For large analyses, it is important
to consider output requests carefully, as they can create
very large files. The following option is used to write
output to the output database file .odb (for plotting in
ABAQUS R /Viewer).

1 **
2 *OUTPUT, FIELD, VARIABLE=PRESELECT
3 **

The following options are used to provide tabular printed

output of element in the data file .dat .

1 **
2 *EL PRINT, ELSET=BARS
3 S, E, COORD
4 *NODE PRINT
5 U, COORD
6 **

4.10 End Step

The final statement tells ABAQUS R that loading step is
over.

1 **
2 *END STEP

Credits
This example was originally created by Prof. James R.
Rice as an example problem for the Harvard University
ES128 class, and has been modified in this document by
Prof. Katia Bertoldi and Matheus C. Fernandes.

3/3