Abaqus Initial Condition

[NSW19]

Hi,

I have an Abaqus model which simulates the additive manufacturing of a simple part. After the simulation is done I do a machining process simulation using another software which is called AdvantEdge. Then I have to do another additive manufacturing simulation on the machined part. For that I need to map the stresses from AdvantEdge to Abaqus as initial conditions. I can get the nodal stress values with nodal locations from AdvantEdge output. But the meshes that I use in Advantedge and Abaqus are different. I could not find a way to map the stress values using the nodal values. Please let me know if there is a way to do that. Thank you.

 

[FEA way]

Abaqus has a built-in functionality for similar purposes - mesh to mesh solution mapping. But it requires two Abaqus analyses with native output files. In your case you would likely have to write a Python script.

 

[NSW19]

Mesh-to-mesh mapping does not work for this case because the analyses are in two different software packages. I cannot go for initial conditions as well because the stress values are not defined for elements and the meshes are different. Also, can you explain a bit on the functionality of the python script in a bit more detailed manner? Thanks.

 

[FEA way]

One more approach would be to use the relatively new (available since Abaqus 2020) *EXTERNAL FIELD keyword but you would have to convert the data to .sim format. Check the documentation chapter Prescribed Conditions --> Initial Conditions --> Importing Data from an Output Database File.