Contour lines drawn on line-shaped elements are difficult to visualize clearly. To see the contours of line-shaped elements (beams, one-dimensional elements, gasket link elements, three-dimensional line gasket elements, and two-dimensional contact surfaces) better, you can choose to display the contour lines using tick mark contour plots.
A tick mark contour plot shows the contour curve drawn between sets of lines that are normal to the actual elements. The contour level is indicated by “tick marks” on these normal lines. ABAQUS displays the contour curve only when it falls within the limits you have specified. For more information on limiting the range of the plot, see “Setting contour limits,” Section 26.4.7.
Figure 26–6 shows the appearance of a tick mark contour plot.
The normal lines, or tick mark axes, are drawn at nodes. At part boundaries, two tick mark axes are drawn. Within a part, if the angle between two adjacent line elements is less than the specified feature angle, a single tick mark axis is drawn in the direction of the average normal of elements sharing the node. Otherwise, a tick mark axis is drawn normal to each element sharing the node. When averaging normals, only displayed elements of the same type are considered in the calculation.
To display tick mark contour plots:
Locate the Contour Type options.
Select Options
Contour from the main menu bar or click 
in the toolbox; then click the Basic tab in the dialog box that appears. The Contour Type options are in the upper left corner of the page.
Toggle Show tick marks for line elements.
Click Apply to implement your changes.
The contour plot in the current viewport changes to display tick mark plots for the line elements in the model.
Your changes are saved for the duration of the session and will affect all subsequent contour plots.
