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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