Hello, I am currently trying to set up an Additive Manufacturing Process Simulation in Abaqus. Thereby, I would like to simulate the SLM manufacturing of a part. The thermal simulation is running, but I have a question to the parameter table "ABQ_AM_MovingHeatSource_Uniform", which I am using. In this parameter table there are three parameters for the Offset in X, Y, Z direction. I assumed that this is a "simple" offset of the Laser and therefore set all of them to 0. In the Abaqus Verification Guide the Example "Heat Energy Balance" is performing a similar Thermal simulation (am_heatbalance_dc3d8_uniform.inp), but there the Offset in Z-direction of 1 is used. And if I change this Offset I can't see any differences. My question therefore is, what does this Offset change? And what for is it used? I couldn't figure this out with the Abaqus documentation.

Further Questions: Is the knowledge base currently working for you? I can't access it (Error Message: The Knowledge Base is unavailable at the moment) for some days already. Because I got the information that I may find useful information for my simulation type.