Dear SIMULIA Community,

I would like to ask a follow-up clarification related to VUEL output in Abaqus/Explicit.

Abaqus documentation states that:

Plotting of user elements is not supported in Abaqus/CAE. However, if the user elements contain displacement degrees of freedom, they can be overlaid with standard elements; and model plots of these standard elements can be displayed.

I understand that this means VUEL/user-defined elements cannot be directly plotted or contoured in Abaqus/CAE like standard elements.

However, I would like to clarify whether this limitation applies only to graphical visualization/contour plotting, or whether it also affects the ability to write and extract VUEL state variables from the ODB.

In my model, the matrix is modelled using standard solid elements with the HJC material model, and its material SDV variables are visible in Visualization. The fibre/interface bond-link behaviour is modelled using VUEL elements, and the damage variables are stored in SVARS(9), SVARS(10), and SVARS(11).

I have tried to request the VUEL state-variable output using:

*Output, field
*Element Output, ELSET=FIBERBONDPART-1.BOND_LINKS
SVARS

and also:

*Output, history, time interval=0.0001
*Element Output, ELSET=FIBERBONDPART-1.BOND_LINKS
SVARS

However, the VUEL SVARS are still not visible/listed in the Visualization module. Only the HJC/matrix SDV variables are available.

My specific questions are:

1. For VUEL elements, should the state variables be requested using SVARS, SDV, or another output identifier?
2. Does the Abaqus/CAE limitation on plotting user-defined elements only affect contour visualization, or does it also prevent VUEL SVARS from being written to the ODB?
3. If VUEL SVARS are not visible/listed in the ODB output, can they still be accessed using the ODB Python API?
4. If VUEL SVARS cannot be written/extracted through the ODB, is the practical solution to manually write the required SVARS values from the VUEL subroutine to an external text/CSV file during the analysis?

Any clarification on the difference between VUEL contour visualization limitation and VUEL SVARS output/extraction limitation would be very helpful.

Thank you.