A general static step uses Abaqus/Standard to perform a static stress/displacement analysis of your model. Abaqus/Standard is a general-purpose analysis product that can solve a wide range of linear and nonlinear problems in Abaqus for CATIA V5. Abaqus/Standard solves a system of equations implicitly at each solution “increment.” In contrast, an explicit dynamics step uses Abaqus/Explicit to perform a dynamic analysis of your model. Abaqus/Explicit marches a solution forward through time in small time increments without solving a coupled system of equations at each increment (or even forming a global stiffness matrix).

For many analyses it is clear whether Abaqus/Standard or Abaqus/Explicit should be used. For example, Abaqus/Standard is more efficient for solving smooth nonlinear problems; on the other hand, Abaqus/Explicit is the clear choice for a wave propagation analysis. There are, however, certain static or quasi-static problems that can be simulated well with either program. Typically, these are problems that usually would be solved with Abaqus/Standard but may have difficulty converging because of contact or material complexities, resulting in a large number of iterations. Such analyses are expensive in Abaqus/Standard because each iteration requires a large set of linear equations to be solved.

Whereas Abaqus/Standard must iterate to determine the solution to a nonlinear problem, Abaqus/Explicit determines the solution without iterating by explicitly advancing the kinematic state from the previous increment. Even though a given analysis may require a large number of time increments using the explicit method, the analysis can be more efficient in Abaqus/Explicit if the same analysis in Abaqus/Standard requires many iterations. Another advantage of Abaqus/Explicit is that it requires much less disk space and memory than Abaqus/Standard for the same simulation. For problems in which the computational cost of the two programs may be comparable, the substantial disk space and memory savings of Abaqus/Explicit make it attractive.