Abaqus vs Ansys: Which one is better?- HyperLyceum (2024)

• Reza Tangestani
• December 2, 2019

As an engineer, we need to build a model to simulate a process so we can save many and reduce processing time. For this aim, we need to use conventional solvers such as Abaqus, ANSYS, Solidwork (I know, Solidwork solver is a joke), and etc. In this post, we are trying to explore the differences in Ansys and Abaqus. At first, we talk about the general aspect of these solvers and then we explain the pros and cons of each software.

History

Abaqus was developed in 1978 and 15000 (Seriously!!? I know guys who did more for their MSc thesis) line FORTRAN code was used for this software. In the beginning, students couldn’t afford the license and for the project, they have to develop some kind of files such as *INP file (I’m not sure) and they needed to submit it and they could get the answer after a few days. In the beginning, they didn’t share the license and just corporate in projects and then they share the profit. Days passed and in the 2005 Dassault Systemes, developers of CATIA and Solidwork bought this software. These days they are releasing a new version every year ( but you won’t notice any difference) in and but still finding the license is difficult for this software (We will talk about it).

We can say Swanson was the father of ANSYS who developed this software in 1970 but they didn’t have significant progress until 1992 that they bought Compuflo Which was the developer of FORTRAN. They start putting more effort into a fluid mechanic which was CFD (that’s when ANSYS starts to make an excellent job in fluid mechanics). They keep developing this software which made this software one of the fastest FEM solvers. For example, ANSYS 5.1 was 2 or 4 times faster than the previous version. In February 2010, it bought CFX, a CFD software company for $ 1.5 million. The company has done well in recent years and has generated more than $ 5 million in revenue in the past six years. the collaboration between ANSYS and LS-Dyna made this software more powerful and enable customers to build better explicit models.

Comparison

If you read the previous section, you might have enough information about these two software and now It’s time to check the difference between this software. Please keep in mind I am an Abaqus user and I mostly created the solid mechanic models so…

Solid mechanic and vibration model

Both have enough accuracy and you might be able to get the acceptable results. However, In ANSYS you may faster result but you need to know Abaqus software is well-known as an accurate software to get results. Since you can use subroutine in Abaqus can build a better model for your publication. However, it doesn’t mean you can’t develop code in Ansys but you can find more people using Abaqus to develop code in Abaqus (Don’t know why). If you want to use Abaqus it’s better to use quadratic elements since I personally believe if your model is big you need to go with ANSYS but if your model needs to be accurate or complex Abaqus is a better option for you. to use hexahedron 8 since I think tetrahedral elements in Abaqus is too weak.

Example

I had a friend who runs a model of a car moving on a 1 Km road to test the vibration in the suspension system. It took a month to solve in 128 GB of RAM and god knows what kind of CPU nut I’m pretty sure it is longer in Abaqus Because it has about 5 million elements and whenever you have more than 500,000 element in your model Abaqus gets stupid.

Fluid mechanic

Don’t ask just go with ANSYS. I even don’t know why but I always see my friend using ANSYS and I don’t have any colleague that uses Abaqus for Fluid mechanic. ANSYS is good enough for you to get both accuracy and speed.

Example

I have a friend from my master’s program who uses ASYS to simulate the pressure and speed of the gas from outside of a turbine. Because of the available tool, he could be able to create a huge model and the accuracy was so good that he also build one turbine with help of a company and now it is working in a tunnel. Imagine this just for a master’s program you design, optimize, build a turbine, and sell it. I’m so proud of knowing that guy.

License

Unfortunately, you might need to pay a lot to get the Abaqus license and probably that’s why you can find more ANSYS users. From my understanding to get an ANSYS license you might need to pay about 400$ for a year but for Abaqus, you may need to pay a lot and from my experience, it is possible that you may need to pay 4000$ for 70 tokins. This information might be completely wrong but I believe in any case ANSYS costs less than Abaqus.

Coding

Definitely, Abaqus is a better option. I don’t know about ANSYS but for Abaqus, you can use Python to create a model. For example, In your model, if you want to put 300 porosity in your model you can use Python code to build instead of clicking more than 300 times. In addition, if you need to create a complex model you can use FORTRAN code. For example, If you need a complex geometry for your heat flux, you can use the DFLUX subroutine.

Job-to-job model

Sometimes, we need to create models after some model. For example, you need to create a heat treatment model after a forging process so you need to create two models in sequence. In these kinds of models, it’s better to use ANSYS since it is more friendly than Abacus. In Abaqus, you need to do some set up to link to model but in ANSYS it is very straight forward.

In General

For small and complex models: Abaqus.

For large and easy model: ANSYS.