There are seven chapters in this guide, each of which introduces one or more topics. Most chapters contain a discussion of pertinent topics as well as one or two tutorial examples. You should work through the examples carefully since they contain a great deal of practical advice on using ABAQUS. The capabilities of ABAQUS/Viewer are introduced as they are needed to visualize the results.

This chapter is a short introduction to ABAQUS and this guide. Chapter 2, “ABAQUS Basics,” which is centered around a simple truss example, covers the basics of ABAQUS input. By the end of Chapter 2, “ABAQUS Basics,” you will know how to prepare input data for an ABAQUS simulation, check the data, solve the analysis, and view the results in ABAQUS/Viewer. Chapter 3, “Overview of Explicit Dynamics,” introduces the concept of explicit dynamics and explains the concept of “stability” using a wave propagation example and a simple oscillating spring example.

Chapter 4, “Finite Elements and Rigid Bodies,” presents an overview of the main element families available in ABAQUS/Explicit and includes an example problem to illustrate hourglassing in a mesh. Material modeling, with an emphasis on elastic-plastic metals and hyperelastic rubbers, is presented in Chapter 5, “Materials.” The example problem is a blast loading on a stiffened steel plate. Chapter 6, “Contact,” explains contact modeling, which is illustrated with two examples: a circuit board, housed in protective foam packaging, impacting the floor and an energy-absorbing square tube crushed between two rigid plates. Using ABAQUS/Explicit to solve quasi-static problems is presented in Chapter 7, “Quasi-Static Analysis.” The illustrative example is a multi-stage sheet metal forming simulation, which requires importing between ABAQUS/Explicit and ABAQUS/Standard to perform the forming and springback analyses efficiently.

Different text styles used in the tutorial examples follow: