This section provides brief descriptions of some of the most significant new capabilities and enhancements available in the Abaqus 6.9 Extended Functionality release; refer to the table of contents for a complete list of new features.
A new iterative equation solver offers significant performance enhancements for simulations involving large, well-conditioned, blocky structures (“Iterative equation solver,” Section 6.1).
Enhancements to the general direct-integration dynamic procedure make Abaqus/Standard an effective option for a broad range of dynamic simulations, in particular unstable quasi-static problems (“Dynamics enhancements,” Section 6.2).
Several enhancements have been made to the coupled Eulerian-Lagrangian (CEL) analysis capabilities in Abaqus/Explicit:
An Eulerian mesh can now scale and translate during an analysis to follow the deformation of a surface or material. This option, which can also be defined in Abaqus/CAE, allows you to create small, efficient meshes in applications that involve large translations or deformations (“Eulerian mesh motion in Abaqus/Explicit,” Section 9.1).
Eulerian boundary conditions can now be defined in Abaqus/CAE (“Eulerian boundary conditions in Abaqus/CAE,” Section 9.2).
Contour integrals are now available as output when modeling fracture mechanics using the extended finite element method (“Contour integral evaluations based on the extended finite element method (XFEM),” Section 6.3).
Several existing analysis features can now be fully defined in Abaqus/CAE, including:
Direct cyclic and low-cycle fatigue analyses (“Direct cyclic analysis in Abaqus/CAE,” Section 6.10).
Model change definitions, which allow the deactivation and reactivation of model regions and contact pairs during an analysis (“Support for element and contact pair removal and reactivation in Abaqus/CAE,” Section 10.5).
Cylindrical elements (“Support for cylindrical elements in Abaqus/CAE,” Section 8.1).
You can analyze structures subject to blast loading using the CONWEP air blasting model in Abaqus/Explicit (“CONWEP blast loading in Abaqus/Explicit,” Section 9.4).
New material models extend the capabilities for realistic simulation in Abaqus:
Abaqus/Explicit now supports the Mohr-Coulomb plasticity model and the clay plasticity model (“Mohr-Coulomb plasticity in Abaqus/Explicit,” Section 7.1; “Critical state (clay) plasticity model in Abaqus/Explicit,” Section 7.2).
Viscoelasticity behavior can now be modeled with anisotropic elasticity and with the unidirectional fiber-reinforced composite damage model (“Viscoelasticity with anisotropic elasticity in Abaqus/Explicit,” Section 7.4).
The surface and tet meshing algorithms in Abaqus/CAE have been enhanced to provide improved performance and robustness (“Mapped meshing performance,” Section 11.1).
Material orientations can now be created in Abaqus/CAE based on the normal direction of the underlying geometry topology (“Enhancements to orientations for material orientations and composite layups,” Section 4.1).
Several enhancements to the Geometry Edit toolset in Abaqus/CAE provide greater precision and broader scope when systematically adjusting the geometry of a model in preparation for meshing (“Selection of individual faces for repair of face normals,” Section 4.3; “Geometry repair for shells and solid parts that contain multiple cells,” Section 4.4; “Improvements to repair of small edges and small faces,” Section 4.5).
Shell geometry in Abaqus/CAE can be rendered with its actual thickness based on the shell section definition, creating a more realistic representation of your model (“Visualization of shell thickness,” Section 12.1).
Abaqus 6.9-EF is released on DVD-ROM. Products supported on each of the following combinations of supported operating systems and processors are summarized below:
Windows/x86-32 (supports interactive and analysis products)
Windows/x86-64 (supports interactive and analysis products)
Linux/x86-32 (supports interactive and analysis products)
Linux/x86-64 (supports interactive and analysis products)
Linux/Itanium (supports analysis products only)
AIX/Power (supports analysis products only)
The remaining chapters in this book provide details on these and other new features of Abaqus 6.9-EF. In addition to the enhancements listed here, most of the known bugs in Abaqus 6.9 are corrected.