Visualization of user-defined elements in Abaqus

Abstract

Abaqus is a software system for finite element analysis. It comes with standard elements which can be used for solving problems based on established theory. In addition to the standard elements, Abaqus offers a possibility for the user to write their own elements, so-called user-defined elements. There is a big drawback when running calculations with user-defined elements: The post-processor of Abaqus is not able to visualize user-defined elements. The user-defined elements will be invisible in the post-processor. In addition, there is no easy way to extract results from the user-defined elements in the same way as for the standard elements. This report contains a description of a method which makes it possible to visualize user-defined elements in Abaqus. The method is somewhat straightforward and easy to implement. No preparation is necessary during creation of the finite element model. It requires the user-defined element to persistently store results of interest. After the finite element calculation has finished, a python-script will read these results and make them available for visualization in Abaqus.