Translating an Abaqus Substructure to an EXCITE Flexible Body

The abaqus toexcite translator converts an Abaqus substructure to a flexible body in a format that can be used by the EXCITE multibody dynamics code.

The translator reads Abaqus data from a substructure SIM file and writes data to an EXCITE binary (.exb) file.

This page discusses:

Using the Translator
Command Summary
Command Line Options

Using the Translator

The following procedure summarizes the typical usage of the abaqus toexcite translator:

Create an Abaqus substructure. (General guidelines for building Abaqus models with substructures are described in Using Substructures.)

The substructure generation step must write at least mass and stiffness matrices. It can also write the recovery, viscous damping, and structural damping matrices. The FLEXIBLE BODY option must be used. For example,
```
SUBSTRUCTURE GENERATE, MASS MATRIX=YES, RECOVERY MATRIX=YES,
VISCOUS DAMPING MATRIX=YES, STRUCTURAL DAMPING MATRIX=YES
FLEXIBLE BODY, TYPE=EXCITE 
```
- If TYPE=EXCITE, an EXCITE flexible body of type CON6 including high-order inertia invariants is created.
- If TYPE=EXCITE, FORMULATION=REDUCED, a simplified EXCITE flexible body of type CON6 using only first-order inertia invariants is created.
- If TYPE=EXCITE, FORMULATION=SMALL MOTION, a small-motion flexible body of type SMOT is created.
Run the Abaqus analysis.
Run the abaqus toexcite translator to read the substructure SIM database produced by the analysis and to create the EXCITE binary file.

Command Summary

abaqus toexcite job job-name hide_mesh { OFF ON } recovery_matrix { OFF ON MERGE } substructure_sim filename

Command Line Options

job

This option specifies the input and output file names to use during results translation. The job-name value is used to construct the default substructure SIM database file name, job-name.sim. The output flexible body interface file is given the name job-name.exb.

If this option is omitted from the command line, you will be prompted for this value.

hide_mesh

This option specifies whether or not to write the element nodes, connectivities, materials, and properties to the EXCITE binary file. By default, the mesh is written. If hide_mesh=ON, the mesh is not written.

recovery_matrix

This option specifies whether or not to write the recovery matrix to an EXCITE binary file.

By default, the recovery matrix is written to a separate EXCITE binary file. If recovery_matrix=MERGE, the recovery matrix is written to the same file as the rest of the flexible body data. If recovery_matrix=OFF, the recovery matrix is not written.

substructure_sim

This option specifies the name of the substructure SIM database (.sim) file if it is different from job-name.sim. The file will usually be named job-name_Znn.sim.