Neper2CAE and PyCiGen: Scripts to generate polycrystals and interface elements in Abaqus

Professor Edmund Tarleton and the Department of Engineering have developed two codes for scripting; one which can be imported for geometric manipulation and meshing with arbitrary element types and another which generates zero thickness four noded interface elements at the boundaries between the crystals.

Using these codes, intergranular fracture similations can be performed easily in Abaqus, and different grain structures can be automatically created which allow the mechanical properties of metals and other crystalline materials to be simulated, and therefore sample-to-sample variability of fracture and mechanical properties observed in experiments can be reproduced.

These scripts extend the simulation capabilities of the finite element solver Abaqus.

Read the full paper in Volume 13 of Software X.