Abaqus Materials Guide

This guide describes the Abaqus material modeling options and how to calibrate some of the more advanced material models. Materials are defined by selecting material behaviors and defining them and combining complementary material behaviors such as elasticity and plasticity. A local coordinate system can be used for material calculations. Any anisotropic properties must be given in this local system.

The material library in Abaqus is intended to provide comprehensive coverage of both linear and nonlinear, isotropic and anisotropic material behaviors. The use of numerical integration in the elements, including numerical integration across the cross-sections of shells and beams, provides the flexibility to analyze the most complex composite structures.

Material behaviors fall into the following general categories:

  • general properties (material damping, density, thermal expansion);

  • elastic mechanical properties;

  • inelastic mechanical properties;

  • multiscale properties;

  • thermal properties;

  • acoustic properties;

  • hydrostatic fluid properties;

  • equations of state;

  • mass diffusion properties;

  • electrical properties; and

  • pore fluid flow properties.

Some of the mechanical behaviors offered are mutually exclusive: such behaviors cannot appear together in a single material definition. Some behaviors require the presence of other behaviors; for example, plasticity requires linear elasticity. Such requirements are discussed at the end of each material behavior description, as well as in Combining material behaviors.