Description: The geostatic procedure is normally used as the first step of a geotechnical analysis; in such cases gravity loads (and possibly other types of loads) are applied during this step. Ideally, the loads and initial stresses should exactly equilibrate and produce zero deformations. However, in previous releases of Abaqus the geostatic procedure did not enforce this condition. In complex problems it may be difficult to specify initial stresses and loads that equilibrate exactly. Consequently, the displacements corresponding to the equilibrium solution might be large unless a special procedure is used to enforce small displacements.

The enhanced geostatic procedure allows you to obtain equilibrium in cases when the initial stress state is unknown or is known only approximately. Abaqus automatically computes the equilibrium corresponding to the initial loads and the initial configuration, allowing only small displacements within user-specified tolerances. The procedure is available with continuum and cohesive elements with pore pressure degrees of freedom and the corresponding stress/displacement elements. The elastic, porous elastic, Cam-clay plasticity, and Mohr-Culomb plasticity material models are supported. Although the list of supported materials includes materials that exhibit inelastic behavior, the procedure is intended to be used in analyses in which the material response is primarily elastic; that is, inelastic deformations are small.

The new enhancements are available from the Incrementation tabbed page when you create or edit a geostatic step in Abaqus/CAE. You must select automatic incrementation to access the new controls. The default settings for increment size and maximum displacement change are shown in Figure 6–6.

Step module:
    Create Step: General: Geostatic; Incrementation