Product: Abaqus/CAE
Benefits: During a topology optimization, Abaqus creates soft elements that have a negligible influence on the stiffness of the resulting structure but are still relevant for the number of degrees of freedom of the structure. Choosing to delete soft elements is recommended when you are optimizing a nonlinear model because those elements would otherwise degenerate or collapse and prevent Abaqus from converging on a solution. Additional criteria have been added that define when an element is considered soft.
Description: You specify the criteria for creating soft elements when you create a topology optimization task. The additional criteria are:
Maximum shear strain
Minimum principal strain
Maximum elastoplastic strain
Volume compression
In addition, if you choose the standard or aggressive criteria, you can prevent isolated soft elements from being removed by choosing to delete only soft elements that have neighboring soft elements.
Optimization module:
Task
Create, Name: task name, Type: Topology optimization, Advanced