Department of Engineering - How to Configure Abaqus to run user subroutines (2024)

Here are instructions on how to configure ABAQUS to run user subroutines.
They apply to installation within University of Cambridge Engineering Department only.

Please note that the following software is required to run ABAQUS with user subroutines:

• Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition. Version for 2008 will not work.
• Intel Fortran Compiler Version 9.1. Later versions will not work.

1. Install software

   1. Click on the Start Menu and open the Run dialog box.
   2. In the dialog box, type the following:

       \\diva-appserv\windows\abaqus 

   3. Open folder 6.8, then Documentation, and double-click on setup.exe to install ABAQUS documentation.
   4. Follow the on-screen instructions from the ABAQUS installer.
   5. Once ABAQUS documentation is installed, go up one folder and open folder Product. Double-click on setup.exe to install ABAQUS product.
   6. Follow the on-screen instructions from the ABAQUS installer. Enter for the licence server:

      27000@abaqus-lmserv

   7. Borrow the Visual Studio CDs from the Design Project Office.
   8. Insert Disk 1 of Visual Studio, right-click on the D:/ drive and select Autoplay.
   9. Follow on-screen instructions and insert Disk 2 when prompted. There is no need to install the MSDN library.
   10. Install the licence for Intel Fortran Compiler.
   11. Run the executable to set-up Intel Fortran Compiler 9.1, and follow on-screen instructions.

2. Configure ABAQUS to Intel Fortran

   1. Find the path for the file ifortvars.bat, which will be similar to

      C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\Compiler\Fortran\9.1\em64t\bin\ifortvars.bat

   2. Click on the Start Menu, click on Programs, find ABAQUS and right-click on the ABAQUS Command window. Click on Properties. In the Target dialog after the

      /k

      symbol, add a blankspace, then the path to

      ifortvars.bat

      between double quotation marks. The complete entry for Target will look like:

      C:\WINDOWS\SysWOW64\cmd.exe /k "C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\Compiler\Fortran\9.1\em64t\bin\ifortvars.bat"

      Click OK.

3. Set environment variables

   1. Double-click on the file vcvarsall.bat, which will be found on a path similar to

      C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 8\VC\vcvarsall.bat

   2. Double-click on the file ifortvars.bat, which will be found on a path similar to

      C:\Program Files (x86)\Intel\Compiler\Fortran\9.1\em64t\bin\ifortvars.bat

   3. Click on the Start Menu, click on Programs, find ABAQUS and double-click on the ABAQUS Command window to open one.
   4. Type in the command window

      set >path.info

      followed by a carriage return.
   5. Open the file path.info which will be found in the ABAQUS working directory, typically

      C:\Temp

4. nameEdit environment variables

   1. Open a new document in Notepad. Find the paths after

      path=

       lib= 

       include=

      , and copy them into the Notepad document. Take care to copy all pathnames, since multiple lines will need to be copied.
   2. Insert a carriage return after the closing semi-colon for each pathname to separate them.
   3. Delete any pathnames that are duplicated.
   4. Delete the carriage returns to reproduce a continuous string of pathnames again. Take care not to delete any non-blankspace characters.

5. Update environment variables

   1. Click on the Start Menu and open the Control Panel. Click on System and then the Advanced tab. Click on Environment Variables. Under the heading System variables, progressively select each of the environment variables path, lib and include. For each variable, click Edit and replace each variable with the entire string of pathnames from the Notepad document corresponding to the variable being editted. Click OK and then OK.
   2. Log off and log back in again.

6. Verify user subroutine linkage

   1. Open an ABAQUS command window and type

      abaqus verify -user_std

      followed by a carriage return. Check that every test passes.
   2. Run a trial analysis using subroutines to check.

Contributed by Rich Laver