Full Model Detail Isn't Always the Right Investment

Some regions of a model deserve close attention, others do not, and treating every part of a structure at full resolution wastes both time and computing budget. Abaqus offers two techniques built specifically for this trade-off. Submodelling isolates a local region for detailed refinement, driven by results from a coarser global model. Substructuring takes the opposite direction: it collapses large, repeating, or unchanging sections of a structure down to a handful of retained degrees of freedom. Applied with judgment, either technique can cut computational cost significantly while leaving the accuracy that actually matters untouched.

Webinar Scope

This training covers submodelling and substructuring side by side: what each does mechanically, when one fits better than the other, and how to set each up without running into the usual pitfalls. Node based submodelling gets compared directly against surface based submodelling, followed by the substructure generation and usage workflow, with the limitations of each method called out along the way. Four worked examples anchor the discussion: a pinched cylinder, a pressure vessel, a pipe joint, and a square frame assembled from repeated substructures.

Topics Covered

• How a global solution drives a refined submodel

• Choosing between node based and surface based submodelling

• Moving data from the global model into the submodel

• Setting prescribed values and boundary conditions within a submodel

• The submodelling sequence, from global run to submodel verification

• Using shell to solid submodelling for joints and through thickness detail

• Where submodelling reaches its limits: supported elements and procedures

• What substructuring reduces, and to what

• Why substructuring pays off computationally and organizationally

• Generating and deploying substructures in practice

• Where substructuring cannot be applied

Who Should Attend?

• Engineers who need local refinement without remeshing an entire model

• Analysts handling large, complex, or repeating assemblies

• Abaqus users trying to bring down computational cost without losing local accuracy

• Anyone isolating local nonlinearities or reanalyzing only part of a structure

Prerequisite

• 4RealSim Abaqus customer