Abaqus uses a standard approach of outputting displacements at nodes and stresses at integration (Gauss) points but it offers many special element types like continuum shell, axisymmetric with asymmetric deformation, cylindrical and even special elements for gaskets and chains used to attach pipelines to the seabed. What you are talking about seems somewhat related to so-called modified elements which may offer an additional performance boost.
The power of Abaqus lies mainly in its capabilities for nonlinear analyses, especially when it comes to contact (including general contact algorithm) but also material nonlinearity.
Yes, subroutines and scripting are powerful features in Abaqus. CalculiX also offers some subroutines including UMAT, DLOAD and a few more.jnxd wrote: ↑Thu Aug 18, 2022 4:40 pm There are also the UMAT (user defined material) routines that researchers have developed over, sometimes, decades. Translating them to any other software will take up significant effort. I suppose if someone wants to use them in an open source alternative calculix is the way to go. Disclaimer: not sure if it is actually supported, but at the very least it is a reason why Abaqus continues to be important.
Right, Abaqus has very intuitive keyword syntax and one of the main advantages of CalculiX is that it uses almost the same syntax. It's really straightforward and allows for an easy definition of various analysis features. As you said, some functionalities of Abaqus are not supported in GUI (and it usually stays like that) and have to be defined with keywords. Abaqus offers Keyword Editor that can be used to add keywords without the need to export the .inp file and edit it in a text editor.jnxd wrote: ↑Thu Aug 18, 2022 4:40 pm Lastly, at least in research fields I have seen people directly working with INP files rather than through GUI. Sometimes even the official release of Abaqus does not have the options desired in their GUI (I suppose its implemented later). I believe there was an option to add a few lines to input file first before sending it off to the solver.
GUI of Abaqus can be considered outdated (it doesn't have a modern look) but it's extremely convenient once you gain some experience.