Abaqus is a finite element analysis and multiphysics suite for simulation.


Category:  Engineering


Availability: Abaqus is a licensed product and may not be available to all CCR users. Abaqus usage by CCR users must not conflict with usage by students taking coursework - be sure to check current license usage before submitting an Abaqus job!


Usage Notes
To show the software versions: module avail abaqus

 

Loading the module will set the path and any necessary variables:  module load abaqus/version

 

Additional Information

The Abaqus CAE graphical interface greatly benefits from using the CCR's remote visualization nodes in the OnDemand portal.  More details about remote visualization in OnDemand can be found in this KB article 


To launch the interface, load the desired abaqus module and type "abaqus cae".


Abaqus has built-in support for running batch jobs across multiple nodes - an example script for doing this may be found on the CCR cluster front-end:
/util/academic/slurm-scripts/slurm-abaqus


Abaqus manuals are also available on the CCR front-end in pdf format and may be viewed using xpdf. Manuals are located at the following path, which is set upon loading the abaqus module: $ABAQUS_PDF_DOCS . The following command will list the available documents:


 

ls $ABAQUS_PDF_DOCS/*.pdf
 

 

 

 Jobs run on CCR's general-compute nodes are limited to a maximum walltime of 72 hours.  Users who anticipate running Abaqus jobs that require longer than 72 hours should make use of the built-in Abaqus restart/recover functionality.  The tips and discussion given here may be helpful.   Also, details on abaqus restart and recover features may be found in chapter 9 of book 2 (ANALYSIS_2) of the user manuals.


Parametric Studies
Abaqus supports running parametric studies using python scripts. Such studies can be run in distributed mode on the CCR cluster. An example slurm script and abaqus .psf file for doing this may be found on the CCR front-end:
/util/academic/abaqus/example_parametric_study


To customize to your application, copy and then modify the following files:
     (1) tutorial.psf --- this is the python code that drives the parametric study.
     Two lines are key:
              p1.generate(template='tutorial')
                  --- Generates the input files required for the study.
              os.system('abaqus_parstudy')
                  --- A driver that processes the input files in distributed mode.
                       It replaces the execute(ALL) command.
     Any other valid python code may be added to the file, just make sure to call
     generate and invoke abaqus_parstudy rather than calling execute(ALL).
     (2) slurm-abaqus-parametric-study  --- This is the slurm script. When doing a
parametric study use this as the example instead of slurm-abaqus.
 When a parametric study completes be sure to examine the .var output file to verify that all tasks completed successfully. If not, you'll need to redo the ones that are marked FAILED. This might happen if study tasks use up all of the memory on a node. Such failures can be corrected by asking for more memory (#SBATCH --mem) or fewer tasks per node (#SBATCH --ntasks-per-node).