September’s webinar is entitled ‘Plug-ins and Python scripting in Abaqus’. It will be held on the 25th of September.

Scripting is the easiest way to automate all the repetitive tasks. There is number of reasons why someone would like to avoid doing everything manually. Number one of course is that doing things manually is boring. However, there are far more important reasons to create scripts. From an engineering point of view, the most important attribute of our work is quality and reliability. Scripts always perform tasks the same way and that gives users confidence that any mistake will not sneak into.

The “Introduction to Non-Linear Analysis Workshop” on the 25th of September is a free ONLINE event for anyone who has some experience of simulation and FEA, but would like to look at extending the scope of the work they do. This workshop is an ideal way to understand what advanced simulation and SIMULIA Abaqus can offer, and find out how easy it actually is to perform a real world non-linear analysis.

As you may have noticed, we're working on kind of a series of blogs on the simulation of different production techniques. This time, we will look at roll forming.

Roll forming

During the roll forming process, a long strip of sheet metal is continuously bent into the desired cross-section. The strip passes through a number of sets of rollers, where each set performs a part of the total desired bend, until the final profile is obtained.

In this blog post, we will be discussing about metal tube hydroforming with Abaqus. We will be using forming limit diagrams to create the material's strain envelope, for avoiding necking (rupture), a possible failure mode, in this type of metal forming process. This will be demonstrated in a hydroforming process simulation of a metal bellows joint.

Thermoforming is a manufacturing process where a plastic sheet is heated to a pliable forming temperature, formed to a specific shape in a mould, and trimmed to create a usable product (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermoforming). Often a vacuum and maybe even a plug is used to help the sheet take the shape of the mould.

July’s webinar will present the analysis types available in Abaqus, for evaluating the structural response under buckling, post buckling and collapse.

Buckling is the sudden collapse of a structural member under axial compressive loading. The importance of accurately predicting buckling loads during design is paramount, since these loads are on most occasions lower than the ultimate compressive loads of the particular member. The non-linear character of this failure type, imposes a modelling and convergence challenge.

The “Introduction to Non-Linear Analysis Workshop” on the 26th of June is a free event for anyone who has some experience of simulation and FEA, but would like to look at extending the scope of the work they do. This workshop is an ideal way to understand what advanced simulation and SIMULIA Abaqus can offer, and find out how easy it actually is to perform a real world non-linear analysis.

Two new methods are available in Abaqus to couple analyses performed at different scales: mean field homogenisation (MFH) and FE-based Representative Volume Element (RVE). The objective is to predict the mechanical response of a structure using data from a smaller scale. These methods are particularly useful when studying complex materials or structures such as composite materials or lattice structures.

In this webinar, we will present the two methods:
- MFH, that uses an analytical calculation to describe the relationship between the scales and
- FE-RVE, that uses a FE model of the microstructure.

We will also look at the micromechanics plug-in that facilitates the generation of FE-RVE models and calculates the homogenised properties of a material that can then be used at the macro scale.

Sometimes you may wish to simulate a process where various parts interact with one another. In such cases it is often impossible to rely on predefined loads and boundary conditions, since the exact points of contact are dependent on the solution. Including contact in your simulation can be a more realistic way to represent loadings.

Abaqus provides a wide range of mechanical models and numerical methods for contact. We will begin this month’s webinar with an overview of these capabilities, considering how to select the best options for a given problem. We will then move on to some challenging example problems and investigate how advanced features of Abaqus contact can help convergence and ensure you obtain realistic solutions.

In this blog post, we will be showcasing a fully coupled fluid structure interaction (FSI) analysis, of a peristaltic roller pump. This study will focus on assessing the performance of a peristaltic pump, under operation. This co-simulation analysis, will solve for both the structural and fluid domains' unknown quantities, during 1 revolution of the rotating mechanism of the pump.

This is an example of a challenging application, in which numerical modelling and computer simulations can provide a lot of insight and value.

The aspects we want to evaluate in this digital model are; determining the volume flow-rate for a given rotation speed, assessing contact stress areas on the tube, and determining the torque output for the given rpm.