Development of User Element Routine (UEL) for Cell-Based Smoothed Finite Element Method (CSFEM) in Abaqus

In this paper, we discuss the implementation of a cell-based smoothed finite element method (CSFEM) within the commercial finite element software Abaqus. The salient feature of the CSFEM is that it does not require an explicit form of the derivative of the shape functions and there is no need for isoparametric mapping. This implementation is accomplished by employing the user element subroutine (UEL) feature in Abaqus. The details on the input data format together with the proposed user element subroutine, which forms the core of the finite element analysis are given. A few benchmark problems from linear elastostatics in both two and three dimensions are solved to validate the proposed implementation. The developed UELs and the associated input files can be downloaded from https://github.com/nsundar/SFEM-in-Abaqus.