Written and maintained by CASRAI Editorial Board
Last updated
Abaqus is a commercial finite element analysis (FEA) software suite from Dassault Systèmes SIMULIA. Researchers use it to simulate how structures and materials respond to loads, impact, vibration and heat, especially when the behaviour is nonlinear. This guide is for graduate students, lab managers and research administrators who need to know what the product is, what its parts are called, what the output variable PEEQ means, and what to record so the work can be reproduced.
What does Abaqus do?
Abaqus simulates the behaviour of products, materials and assemblies. Dassault Systèmes describes it as an FEA solution covering nonlinear effects such as large deformation, contact and advanced materials, plus impact, vibration, thermal response and material failure, with automatic adjustment of time increments (3ds.com Abaqus product page, read 2026-11-07). In research this usually means a model of a specimen, component or device is meshed, assigned material properties, loaded, and solved, and the resulting stresses, strains and displacements are compared with experiments or theory.
The Abaqus products: Standard, Explicit and CAE
People say “Abaqus” for the whole suite, but the documentation separates the solvers from the interface. The definitions below paraphrase the Abaqus 2016 Getting Started guide (a university-hosted copy of the documentation, read 2026-11-07).
| Product | What the documentation says it is | Typical research fit |
|---|---|---|
| Abaqus/Standard | A general-purpose analysis product for linear and nonlinear static, dynamic, thermal, electrical and electromagnetic problems; it solves a system of equations implicitly at each increment. | Static and quasi-static loading, steady heat transfer, frequency extraction. |
| Abaqus/Explicit | A special-purpose product using an explicit dynamic formulation, suited to brief transient events such as impact and blast, and to highly nonlinear problems with changing contact, such as forming. | Impact, blast and forming simulations. |
| Abaqus/CAE | The Complete Abaqus Environment, an interactive graphical environment for creating or importing geometry, meshing, assigning properties, loads and boundary conditions, submitting and monitoring jobs, and viewing results in the Visualization module. | Building models and inspecting results. |
| Abaqus/Viewer | A subset of Abaqus/CAE containing only the postprocessing capabilities. | Reviewing results without model-building tools. |
| Abaqus/CFD | A computational fluid dynamics product for incompressible flow, including laminar and turbulent flow. | Incompressible flow problems. |
The “typical research fit” column is an editorial summary of the documentation’s own descriptions. Which solver suits a given study depends on the physics; state the choice and the reasoning in the methods section.
What does PEEQ mean in Abaqus?
PEEQ is the equivalent plastic strain output variable. The Abaqus 2025 output documentation defines it as the initial value plus the time integral of the equivalent plastic strain rate, where the rate depends on the material model in use (Abaqus 2025 documentation, university-hosted copy, read 2026-11-07). Two related details from the same page:
- PEEQT is the equivalent plastic strain in uniaxial tension, used for models such as cast iron plasticity and the Mohr-Coulomb tension cutoff.
- For the concrete damaged plasticity model, PEEQ is the uniaxial compression value.
Because PEEQ accumulates over the analysis, a value above zero at a point generally indicates plastic deformation there (editorial interpretation). What the number means physically still depends on the material model, so report the model alongside any PEEQ contour.
What is the latest version of Abaqus?
Dassault Systèmes releases Abaqus by year, and an Abaqus 2026 release exists. The product page does not publish a release number or date, so confirm the current release and your licensed version with your institution’s licence administrator or SIMULIA. For reproducibility, record the exact version, the solver (Standard or Explicit) and any user subroutines in your methods; the 2016 and 2025 documentation copies cited here differ and behaviour may differ between releases.
How much does Abaqus cost, and is there a free version?
Abaqus is licensed commercially. The 3ds.com product page directs buyers to contact the company and does not publish prices; it says training for students and academia is available. No price is stated here because none is published on the official page. Many universities provide access through campus licences, so a student or researcher can ask their department or research computing group about access. Terms for academic or student use are set by SIMULIA and your institution.
How a research project moves through Abaqus
The documentation’s description of Abaqus/CAE gives the order of work:
- Create or import the geometry of the structure and decompose it into meshable regions.
- Assign physical and material properties to the geometry.
- Apply loads and boundary conditions.
- Mesh the geometry and verify the resulting analysis model.
- Submit, monitor and control the analysis job.
- Interpret the results in the Visualization module.
The documentation also describes translator utilities that convert between Abaqus input files and other formats, and an output database file that stores results. Keeping the input file and the results database with the exact software version is a simple way to make a simulation study repeatable; see computational reproducibility and the guide to writing a software management plan.
Strengths and limits
- Strength (sourced): documented handling of nonlinear problems, contact and a range of material models, with separate implicit and explicit solvers.
- Strength (sourced): geometry translators and input-file translators let teams move models between tools.
- Limit (sourced): it is commercial, licensed software with no published price, so access depends on a licence.
- Limit (editorial): results depend on mesh, material model and boundary conditions; a completed run is not a validated result.
Alternatives and neighbouring tools
The Abaqus 2016 documentation lists translators for these other solver input formats, which shows which tools commonly sit beside it in research pipelines. This is not a ranking or feature comparison.
| Format or tool | Abaqus translator (as documented) |
|---|---|
| ANSYS | abaqus fromansys converts an ANSYS input file to an Abaqus input file. |
| LS-DYNA | abaqus fromdyna converts an LS-DYNA keyword file. |
| Nastran | abaqus fromnastran converts a Nastran bulk data file; abaqus tonastran converts the other way. |
| PAM-CRASH | abaqus frompamcrash converts a PAM-CRASH input file. |
| RADIOSS | abaqus fromradioss converts a RADIOSS input file. |
For multiphysics modelling outside Abaqus, see the CASRAI guide to COMSOL Multiphysics. For stochastic rather than finite element simulation, see Monte Carlo simulation, and for scripting analysis around results see what MATLAB is used for.
Citing Abaqus in your methods
Name the product, the vendor (Dassault Systèmes SIMULIA), the release year, the solver used, the element types and the material model. Follow your journal’s software-citation rule; see how to cite software.
FAQ
What does Abaqus do?
It runs finite element simulations of structures and materials, including nonlinear contact, impact, vibration and thermal problems.
What is the latest version of Abaqus software?
An Abaqus 2026 release exists; check the 3ds.com Abaqus page or your licence administrator for the version you are entitled to.
How much does Abaqus cost?
The vendor does not publish a price on its product page; it is licensed commercially.
What does PEEQ mean in Abaqus?
Equivalent plastic strain: the initial value plus the time integral of its rate, which depends on the material model.
Sources
- Dassault Systèmes, Abaqus product page: 3ds.com/products/simulia/abaqus (read 2026-11-07).
- Abaqus 2016 Getting Started with Abaqus, section 1.1, The Abaqus products: University of Colorado documentation copy (read 2026-11-07).
- Abaqus 2025 output variables, element integration point variables: Virginia Tech documentation copy (read 2026-11-07).
