Hi, I'm unsure if this is the right community to post a query like this so let me know if there is a better community that would be more suited to helping beginner ABAQUS users and I will take it up there.

I have been tasked with a uni project where I have to use ABAQUS to analyse the response of a bridge under seismic loading with and without seismic isolation. The required complexity of the bridge has not been specified and can be altered depending on your skills on ABAQUS. As I am relatively new to Abaqus, I am unsure what my best approach to this would be. The main focus of the project is the effect of the isolators, so if there is a way to insert a bridge model that would give an accurate representation of the real world when I add the isolators that would be great. Otherwise I will have to try and create the simplest bridge model that would still hold accuracy to the real world and test it under seismic loading with and without the seismic isolators.

So I basically have 4 questions to get me started with the task:

1) Is there a way to import a pre-made bridge model in to abaqus that I could virtually retrofit isolators to and test it under seismic loading with and without the isolators? And if so where could I access something like this from?

2) If importing an existing bridge model is not an option, I will have to model as simple a bridge as possible that would still resemble the actions of a real life bridge when seismic loading occurs. Has anyone any suggestions for what the best way to do that on this software would be?

3) I read somewhere that there is an isolation feature built in to ABAQUS. I am still under the impression that I will have to model each part of an isolator and insert it in to the bridge for the most accurate representation. However, it could be useful to have an isolator function to compare my results to. So, is there an isolator function built in to ABAQUS? And if so, how can it be used?

4) Are there any useful manuals or documentation on the method of applying seismic loading to a structure on abaqus?

Any help on any of these would be appreciated. Again, as I said, if I have posted this to the wrong place let me know and I will ask it in another community.