Implementation of the Arlequin method into ABAQUS: Basic formulations and applications

This article is concerned with implementing the Arlequin method into the commercial finite element software ABAQUS and demonstrating its versatility in various typical applications. According to the basic idea of the Arlequin method, the particular formulations for the ABAQUS user element are presented. A unified method for calculating coupling matrices is proposed in an obvious and straightforward way. The user element subroutines for coupling two relatively independent models with different or same dimensions are developed. Four numerical examples are considered: One is to demonstrate the coupling of elements with the same element type but different grid density by the Arlequin method, and the other three examples involve different types of elements. The numerical results justify the correctness of the codes developed for the user defined elements as well as the feasibility of the Arlequin method which is successfully integrated into ABAQUS.