The SIMULIA Online Support System (SOSS) has a knowledge database of SIMULIA Answers. The SIMULIA Answers are solutions to questions that we have had to answer or guidelines on how to use Abaqus, SIMULIA SLM, and other SIMULIA products. You can also submit new requests for support in the SOSS. All support incidents are tracked in the SOSS. If you are contacting us by means outside the SOSS to discuss an existing support problem and you know the incident number, please mention it so that we can consult the database to see what the latest action has been.

To use the SOSS, you need to register with the system. Visit the My Support page at www.simulia.com to register.

Many questions about Abaqus can also be answered by visiting the Products page and the Support page at www.simulia.com. The information available online includes:

Technical support engineers are available to assist in clarifying Abaqus features and checking errors by giving both general information on using Abaqus and information on its application to specific analyses. If you have concerns about an analysis, we suggest that you contact us at an early stage, since it is usually easier to solve problems at the beginning of a project rather than trying to correct an analysis at the end.

Please have the following information ready before calling the technical engineering support hotline, and include it in any written contacts:

When calling for support about a specific problem, any available Abaqus output files may be helpful in answering questions that the support engineer may ask you.

The support engineer will try to diagnose your problem from the model description and a description of the difficulties you are having. The more detailed information you provide, the easier it will be for the support engineer to understand and solve your problem.

If the support engineer cannot diagnose your problem from this information, you may be asked to supply the input data. The data can be attached to a support incident in the SIMULIA Online Support System (SOSS). It can also be sent by means of e-mail, tape, disk, or ftp. Please check the Support Overview page at www.simulia.com for the media formats that are currently accepted.

If you are contacting us to discuss an existing problem, please give the receptionist the support engineer's name if contacting us via telephone or include it at the top of any e-mail correspondence. If you are using the SOSS (preferred for written communication), update the existing incident for the problem.

Systems support engineers can help you resolve issues related to the installation and running of Abaqus, including licensing difficulties, that are not covered by technical engineering support.

You should install Abaqus by carefully following the instructions in the Abaqus Installation and Licensing Guide. If you are able to complete the installation, please make sure that the product verification procedure was run successfully at the end of the installation procedure. Successful verification for licensed products would indicate that you can run these products on your computer; unsuccessful verification for licensed products indicates problems with the installation or licensing (or both). If you encounter problems with the installation, licensing, or verification, first review the instructions in the Abaqus Installation and Licensing Guide to ensure that they have been followed correctly. If this does not resolve the problems, consult the SIMULIA Answers database in the SOSS for information about known installation problems. If this does not address your situation, please create an incident in the SOSS and describe your problem, including the output from abaqus info=support. If you call, mail, e-mail, or fax us about a problem (instead of using the SOSS), please provide the output from abaqus info=support. It is important that you provide as much information as possible about your problem: error messages from an aborted analysis, output from the abaqus info=support command, etc.

To facilitate data transfer with SIMULIA, an anonymous ftp account is available on the computer ftp.simulia.com. Login as user anonymous, and type your e-mail address as your password. Contact support before placing files on the site.

Use the My Support page at www.simulia.com, or obtain local support office contact information from the Locations page at www.simulia.com.

In addition, contact information for offices and representatives is listed in the front of each manual.

Abaqus/CAE User's Manual: This document for Abaqus/CAE includes detailed descriptions of how to use Abaqus/CAE for model generation, analysis, and results evaluation and visualization. Abaqus/Viewer users should refer to the information on the Visualization module in this manual.

Abaqus Analysis User's Manual: This volume contains a complete description of the elements, material models, procedures, input specifications, etc. It is the basic reference document for Abaqus/Standard and Abaqus/Explicit. Both input file usage and Abaqus/CAE usage information are provided in this manual.

Abaqus Example Problems Manual: This volume contains detailed examples designed to illustrate the approaches and decisions needed to perform meaningful linear and nonlinear analysis. Many of the examples are worked with several different element types, mesh densities, and other variations. Typical cases are large motion of an elastic-plastic pipe hitting a rigid wall; inelastic buckling collapse of a thin-walled elbow; explosive loading of an elastic, viscoplastic thin ring; consolidation under a footing; buckling of a composite shell with a hole; and deep drawing of a metal sheet. It is generally useful to look for relevant examples in this manual and to review them when embarking on a new class of problem.

Abaqus Benchmarks Manual: This volume contains benchmark problems and analyses used to evaluate the performance of Abaqus; the tests are multiple element tests of simple geometries or simplified versions of real problems. The NAFEMS benchmark problems are included in this manual.

Getting Started with Abaqus: Interactive Edition: This document is a self-paced tutorial designed to help new users become familiar with using Abaqus/CAE to create solid, shell, and framework models and Abaqus/Standard or Abaqus/Explicit to perform static, quasi-static, and dynamic stress analysis simulations. It contains a number of fully worked examples that provide practical guidelines for performing structural analyses with Abaqus. In addition, three comprehensive tutorials are provided to introduce users familiar with the Abaqus solver products to the Abaqus/CAE interface.

Getting Started with Abaqus: Keywords Edition: This document is designed to help new users become familiar with the Abaqus/Standard and Abaqus/Explicit input file syntax for static and dynamic stress analysis simulations. The keyword interface is used to model examples similar to those included in Getting Started with Abaqus: Interactive Edition.

Lecture Notes: These notes are available on many topics to which Abaqus is applied. They are used in the technical seminars that are presented to help users improve their understanding and usage of Abaqus (see the “Training” section above for more information about these seminars). While not intended as stand-alone tutorial material, they are sufficiently comprehensive that they can usually be used in that mode. The list of available lecture notes is included in the Documentation Price List, which is accessible from the Products page at www.simulia.com.

Using Abaqus Online Documentation: This manual contains instructions for navigating, viewing, and searching the Abaqus HTML and PDF documentation.

Abaqus Keywords Reference Manual: This volume contains a complete description of all the input options that are available in Abaqus/Standard and Abaqus/Explicit.

Abaqus Theory Manual: This volume contains detailed, precise discussions of all theoretical aspects of Abaqus. It is written to be understood by users with an engineering background.

Abaqus Verification Manual: This volume contains basic test cases, providing verification of each individual program feature (procedures, output options, MPCs, etc.) against exact calculations and other published results. It may be useful to run these problems when learning to use a new capability. In addition, the supplied input data files provide good starting points to check the behavior of elements, materials, etc.

Abaqus User Subroutines Reference Manual: This volume contains a complete description of all the user subroutines available for use in Abaqus analyses. It also discusses the utility routines that can be used when writing user subroutines.

Abaqus Glossary: This glossary defines technical terms as they apply to the Abaqus Unified FEA Product Suite.

Quality Assurance Plan: This document describes the QA procedures followed by Dassault Systèmes Simulia Corp. It is a controlled document, provided to customers who subscribe to either the Nuclear QA Program or the Quality Monitoring Service.

Abaqus Release Notes: This document contains brief descriptions of the new features available in the latest release of the Abaqus product line.

Abaqus Scripting User's Manual: This manual provides a description of the Abaqus Scripting Interface, which is an application programming interface (API) to the models and data used by Abaqus. The manual describes how commands can be used to create and analyze Abaqus/CAE models, to view the results of the analysis, and to automate repetitive tasks. It also contains information on using the Abaqus Scripting Interface or C++ as an API to the output database.

Abaqus Scripting Reference Manual: This manual provides a command reference that lists the syntax of each command in the Abaqus Scripting Interface.

Abaqus GUI Toolkit User's Manual: This manual provides a description of the Abaqus GUI Toolkit. The manual describes the components and organization of the Abaqus GUI. It also describes how you can customize the Abaqus GUI to build a particular application. The manual takes you through the process of writing an application by explaining how to use the components of the toolkit and by providing snippets of example code.

Abaqus GUI Toolkit Reference Manual: This manual provides a command reference that lists the syntax of each command in the Abaqus GUI Toolkit.

Abaqus Interface for MSC.ADAMS User's Manual: This document describes how to use the Abaqus Interface for MSC.ADAMS, which creates Abaqus models of MSC.ADAMS components and converts the Abaqus results into an MSC.ADAMS modal neutral file that can be used by the ADAMS/Flex program. It is the basic reference document for the Abaqus Interface for MSC.ADAMS.

Abaqus Interface for Moldflow User's Manual: This document describes how to use the Abaqus Interface for Moldflow, which creates a partial Abaqus input file by translating results from a Moldflow polymer processing simulation. It is the basic reference document for the Abaqus Interface for Moldflow.

Abaqus Installation and Licensing Guide: This document describes how to install Abaqus and how to configure the installation for particular circumstances. Some of this information, of most relevance to users, is also provided in the Abaqus Analysis User's Manual.