Simulation Steps and Boundary Conditions¶
- This document describes the specific steps that are used in an Abaqus FE simulation. Each documented step should describe the following information:
- Description: the general purpose of the step
- Interactions: the interactions that are activate in this step
- Kinematic boundary conditions: the kinematic boundary conditions that are being assigned, and where they are being applied
- Kinetic boundary conditions: the external loads that are being applied to the model, and where they are being applied
Simulation Incrementation (time-step)¶
The time-step for the simulation defines the incrementation through the simulation’s steps. This value will be automatically determined by the Abaqus software.
The automatic controls for the time-step are dependant on the smallest element size in the solid meshes. If the simulation is unstable, or the time-step is prohibitively small, then the solid geometry (meniscus) with the smallest element will be remeshed.
If remeshing is not sufficient to yield a simulation with a reasonably large time-step, then mass scaling will be used to increase the time steps used in the simulation.
Step Time¶
The total amount of time that is specified for each step is referred to as step time. Unless noted in the step’s description, the total time for each step is 1 second.
Simulation Loading Cases¶
The steps that makeup an FE simulation for different loading cases: