ABAQUS, Inc., offers both technical (engineering) support and systems support for ABAQUS. Technical and systems support are provided through the nearest local support office. We regard technical support as an important part of the service we offer and encourage you to contact us with any questions or concerns that you have about your ABAQUS analyses. You can contact our offices by telephone, fax, electronic mail, or regular mail. Information on how to contact each office is listed in the front of each ABAQUS manual. Support is also available on the World Wide Web for your convenience. The ABAQUS Online Support System is accessible through the MY ABAQUS section of the ABAQUS Home Page (www.abaqus.com). When contacting your local support office, please specify whether you would like technical support (you have encountered problems performing an ABAQUS analysis) or systems support (ABAQUS will not install correctly, licensing does not work correctly, or other hardware-related issues have arisen).
We welcome any suggestions for improvements to the support program or documentation. We will ensure that any enhancement requests you make are considered for future releases. If you wish to file a complaint about the service or products provided by ABAQUS, refer to the ABAQUS Home Page.
ABAQUS technical support engineers can assist in clarifying ABAQUS features and checking errors by giving both general information on using ABAQUS and information on its application to specific analyses. If you have concerns about an analysis, we suggest that you contact us at an early stage, since it is usually easier to solve problems at the beginning of a project rather than trying to correct an analysis at the end.
Please have the following information ready before calling the technical support hotline, and include it in any written contacts:
The version of ABAQUS that are you using.
The version numbers for ABAQUS/Standard and ABAQUS/Explicit are given at the top of the data (.dat) file.
The version numbers for ABAQUS/CAE and ABAQUS/Viewer can be found by selecting Help
On Version from the main menu bar.
The version numbers for the ABAQUS Interface for MOLDFLOW and the ABAQUS Interface for MSC.ADAMS are output to the screen.
The type of computer on which you are running ABAQUS.
The symptoms of any problems, including the exact error messages, if any.
Workarounds or tests that you have already tried.
The support engineer will try to diagnose your problem from the model description and a description of the difficulties you are having. Frequently, the support engineer will need model sketches, which can be faxed or sent in the mail. Plots of the final results or the results near the point that the analysis terminated may also be needed to understand what may have caused the problem.
If the support engineer cannot diagnose your problem from this information, you may be asked to send the input data. The data can be sent by means of e-mail, tape, or disk. It may also be attached to a support incident in the ABAQUS Online Support System. Please check the ABAQUS Home Page at www.abaqus.com for the media formats that are currently accepted.
All support incidents are tracked in the ABAQUS Online Support System. This tracking enables you (as well as the support engineer) to monitor the progress of a particular problem and to check that we are resolving support issues efficiently. To use the ABAQUS Online Support System, you need to register with the system. Visit the MY ABAQUS section of the ABAQUS Home Page for instructions on how to register. If you are contacting us to discuss an existing support problem and you know the incident number, please mention it so that we can consult the database to see what the latest action has been and, thus, avoid duplication of effort. In addition, please give the receptionist the support engineer's name or include it at the top of any e-mail correspondence.
ABAQUS systems support engineers can help you resolve issues related to the installation and running of ABAQUS, including licensing difficulties, that are not covered by technical support.
You should install ABAQUS by carefully following the instructions in the ABAQUS Installation and Licensing Guide. If you encounter problems with the installation or licensing, first review the instructions in the ABAQUS Installation and Licensing Guide to ensure that they have been followed correctly. If this method does not resolve the problems, consult the ABAQUS Answers database in the ABAQUS Online Support System for information about known installation problems. If this method does not address your situation, please contact your local support office. Send whatever information is available to define the problem: error messages from an aborted analysis or a detailed explanation of the problems encountered. Whenever possible, please send the output from the abaqus info=support command.