Inside Abaqus 2025

What’s New in Abaqus 2025? Highlights in Modeling, Performance, and Multiphysics  

The Abaqus 2025 general availability (GA) release, along with the first five Fix Pack (FD) updates of Abaqus 2024, introduces powerful new capabilities across modeling, solver performance, material behavior, and co-simulation. These enhancements offer analysts and engineers increased modeling flexibility, faster simulation runtimes, and new physics-driven features for advanced applications in fatigue, contact, wear, and multiphysics workflows. 

In this blog, we highlight the most impactful updates for users working with Abaqus/CAE, Abaqus/Standard, and Abaqus/Explicit. 

Modeling Efficiency in Abaqus/CAE 

The 2025 release improves how users interact with complex physics setups directly in Abaqus/CAE, reducing reliance on the keyword editor. 

Wear modeling in general contact You can now assign wear surface properties through the graphical interface, enabling faster setup for wear simulations. 

Rotordynamic loads Rotational body forces are now natively supported in Abaqus/CAE, streamlining rotor dynamic analyses. 

Step-dependent activation of fluid inflators and exchanges Fluid inflators and cavity exchanges can now be triggered per analysis step, offering full control in both implicit and explicit steps. 

Seam modeling on dependent part instances Seam creation is now supported for dependent parts, previously limited to independent instances, facilitating more flexible fracture simulations. 

Plastic response for Neuber and Glinka corrections (FD04) Abaqus/CAE now supports localized plasticity correction definitions, improving efficiency in estimating plastic strains without leaving the GUI. 

State space solver as default for transient modal analysis (FD03) This solver, now the default, offers unconditional stability and improved runtime for modal damping problems. 

Solver Performance and Analysis Strategies 

Solver enhancements in this release are aimed at improving convergence robustness, speeding up simulations, and reducing modeling overhead. 

Step cycling Easily repeat steps for fatigue or wear simulations without duplicating steps manually. 

Alternative convergence controls (FD03) New relaxed convergence settings are now available for strongly coupled multiphysics simulations. 

Adjoint sensitivity enhancements (FD03) Faster and broader sensitivity support is now included for eigenfrequency and steady-state dynamics analyses. 

Field import for fatigue crack growth (FD03) Import external fields into submodels to evaluate crack propagation in large multi-step workflows. 

Beam-to-shell submodeling (FD01) Create refined local submodels using shell elements derived from beam-dominated global models. 

Unit system translation in co-simulation (FD03) Flexibly switch between unit systems across coupled models using the Co-Simulation Engine. 

Lanczos eigensolver with MPI (FD03) Frequency extraction is now faster and scalable via MPI-based parallel execution. 

SPH conversion in parallel (FD03) Smooth Particle Hydrodynamics models now support parallel progressive element conversion. 

Advanced Contact and Wear Simulation 

Abaqus 2025 delivers new tools to model long-term contact degradation, wear evolution, and adaptive mesh behavior. 

Archard-based contact wear Now supported in both Abaqus/Standard and Abaqus/Explicit, with visualized nodal wear distances. 

Step cycling for wear Automate repetitive loading steps, scaling the number of cycles based on wear rate. 

ALE meshing with wear (FD03) Arbitrary Lagrangian-Eulerian meshing now supports evolving wear distances, ideal for high-deformation zones. 

Beam contact with noncircular sections Improved contact surface generation allows for better postprocessing and realism. 

Structure-to-structure co-simulation interface (FD02) Updated keyword behavior brings a unified experience across Abaqus/Standard and Abaqus/Explicit. 

Material Realism: Damage, Creep, Damping, and More 

The release introduces a range of new material models and enhancements for more accurate representation of physical behavior: 

• Creep models Darveaux and modified Darveaux models now supported in the Parallel Rheological Framework (PRF), offering better long-term deformation predictions. 

• Hyperelasticity and viscoelastic fluids The Hencky model and nonlinear viscoelastic shear behavior improve elastomer and fluid response accuracy. 

• Multiscale and anisotropic failure Stress/strain-based failure criteria are now available at the grain and laminate level for composites and anisotropic materials. 

• Piezoresistive and electrical resistivity modeling (FD03) Fully supported for sensor simulation and electro-mechanical applications. 

• Tangent thermal expansion coefficients Now supported for accurate thermal-structural behavior when using temperature-dependent expansion data. 

• Field expansion for porous media Independent expansion control for solid and fluid phases enhances porous material modeling in geomechanics and life sciences. 

Subroutines and Prescribed Boundary Conditions 

Abaqus expands customization and thermal modeling flexibility through new subroutines and improved interface parameters: 

New user subroutines 

• UVAREL (FD03): Define element-level output variables. 

• VDLOAD (FD02): Access displacements and accelerations in load definitions. 

• UEXPAN (FD01): Specify complex expansion strains, including in porous media. 

Improved thermal boundary control New parameters (AMBIENT AMPLITUDE, SINK AMPLITUDE, RADIATION AMPLITUDE) offer more intuitive ways to manage temperature-dependent boundary fluxes. 

Algorithm improvements Radiative and convective boundary condition calculations are now smoother across step boundaries, enhancing thermal solution stability. 

Conclusion 

Abaqus 2025 significantly extends the simulation capabilities across multiple domains, whether you're modeling complex materials, optimizing fatigue life, simulating wear behavior, or managing multiphysics coupling. From powerful new solvers to smarter user interfaces and support for new physics, this release is built to help engineers do more with greater speed and control. 

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