About Substructure Generation Steps

A substructure generation step creates a reduced-order model that can be used in other models.

Substructures are collections of elements from which the internal degrees of freedom have been eliminated. Retained nodes and degrees of freedom are recognized externally at the usage level (when the substructure is used in an analysis), and they are defined during generation of the substructure.

A substructure can be considered as a special type of element (and is sometimes referred to as a superelement). The retained nodes of a substructure form its connectivity. Multiple instances of a substructure can appear in a model.

In the substructure generation step, you choose which nodes will be retained in the usage model.

This page discusses:

See Also
In Other Guides
Importing Abaqus Substructures
Substructures

Substructure Identifiers

When you generate a substructure, you specify an identifier that will be assigned to this substructure. All identifiers begin with the letter Z followed by a number between 1 and 9999. Each substructure that you create must have a unique identifier.

Interfaces

The interface is that portion of the substructure that is exposed in the usage model. You can apply loads and restraints to the interface, and you can include the interface in connections and contact definitions. The interface consists of nodes retained from the original part mesh.