ABAQUS Tutorial
Project 1. Critical buckling load and buckling modes of metal sheet
A sheet of length L = 100 mm, width d = 50 mm and thickness t = 2 mm is made of aluminium
having Young’s modulus E = 70 GPa and Poisson’s ratio ν = 0.3. The left edge of the sheet is
fixed and its right edge is under a uni-axial compression.
Find the critical buckling load (i.e. corresponding to the first buckling mode) and the first 5
buckling modes of the sheet by finite element analysis.
Units in ABAQUS
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Modelling steps
1. Geometry drawing
Creat a part of 3D Shell (Planar Type)
Draw a rectangle of length L = 100 mm, width d = 50 mm
2. Material creation, section assignment, assembly & mesh generation
In the Property module, create Material-1 with: Young’s modulus E = 70,000 MPa and
Poisson’s ratio ν = 0.3.
Create a solid homogeneous Section-1 with Material-1. The shell thickness is: 2 mm.
Assign Section-1 to the created part
Create an instance of the part in the Assembly module
In the Mesh module, mesh the part.
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3. Step setting
In the Step module, create a Buckle step. Set the number of requested eigenvalues to be
5, so only the first five buckling modes will be computed.
4. Boundary & loading condition
In Load module, fix the left edge of the sheet.
Apply a shell edge load on the right edge of the sheet.
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5. Job creation, submission and simulation results
Create a job for the model and submit it
When the job is completed, right-click it and then click “Results”.
Show the five buckling modes
Calculate the critical buckling load
Note 1: The buckling load is calculated as: Buckling load (in N) = Magnitude of the
applied shell edge load (= 1 from Step 4) × Eigen Value (calculated from simulation)
× length of the shell edge (= 50 mm for the left edge of the sheet)
Note 2: The critical buckling load is the smallest buckling load, which corresponds to
the first buckling mode.
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Project 2. Post-buckling analysis of soft laminated composite
In this project, we will conduct post-buckling analysis of the bi-layer elastomer under
compression. In order to trigger buckling in the simulation, a geometric imperfection must be
introduced first. Therefore, we have two models to develop:
Model-1 for introducing a geometric imperfection, which is taken as the first buckling mode;
Model-2 for the post-buckling analysis.
Modelling steps
1. Geometry drawing
In the Part module, draw a rectangle of length = 50 mm and width = 11 mm.
Using the Partition Face function to divide the rectangle into two parts: top layer of 1 mm
and bottom substrate of 10 mm.
2. Material creation, section assignment, assembly & mesh generation
In the Property module, create Material 1 for the rigid top layer (elastomer): mechanical
hyperelastic Neo Hooke c10 = 1.25, D1 = 0.0001.
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Create Material 2 for the soft substrate (elastomer): mechanical hyperelastic Neo
Hooke c10 = 0.05, D1 = 0.0001.
Create a solid homogeneous Section 1 with Material 1
Create a solid homogeneous Section 2 with Material 2
Assign Section 1 to the top layer
Assign Section 2 to the substrate
Create an instance of the part in the Assembly module
In the Mesh module, set the Element Type of the two sections as Plane Strain and tick
Hybrid formulation.
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In the Mesh module, seed the part and then mesh it.
3. Model-1 for introducing a geometric imperfection: step, boundary conditions & Job-1
In the Step module, create a Buckle step. Set the number of requested eigenvalues to be 3,
so only the first three buckling modes will be computed.
In the Load module, fix the vertical displacement of the bottom edge and the horizontal
displacement of the left edge.
In the Load module, impose a small horizontal displacement of −0.01 mm on the right edge.
Right-click Model-1 Edit Keywords add:
*NODE FILE
U,
Note: this displacement U will be introduced to Model-2 as an initial geometric imperfection
to trigger the buckling.
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Create Job 1 for Model-1 and submit it.
4. Model-2 for post-buckling analysis: step, boundary conditions & Job-2
Copy Model-1, paste it and then re-name it as Model-2.
In the Step module, delete the Buckle step and then create a general static step with a time
period of 3 s. Tick NLGEOM on.
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In the Load module, create a displacement of −15 mm on the right edge.
Right-click Model-2 Edit Keywords add:
*IMPERFECTION,FILE=Job-1,STEP=1
1,0.001
Note: the first buckling mode from Model-1 with an amplitude of 0.001 is introduced as the
geometric imperfection.
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Right-click Model-2 Edit Keywords: if find “ *Conflicts, …”, delete it.
Create Job-2 for Model-2 and submit it
When Job-2 is completed, right-click it and then click “Results”.
Select “Animate” to see the deformation evolution.
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