I found that the Abaqus documentation is missing a description of command line parameters MP_HOST_SPLIT and THREADS, which can be useful in parallel calculations.

For example, a combination of CPUS=8 and MP_HOST_SPLIT=2 creates two DMP processes with four threads in each. The THREADS parameter is similar but specifies the number of threads in a DMP process instead of number of processes. Thus, a combination CPUS=8 and THREADS=4 should give the same result.

Possible benefits of splitting job execution into several DMP processes within a single compute node are discussed in A. de Blanche and T. Lundqvist // Node Sharing for Increased Throughput and Shorter Runtimes – an Industrial Co-Scheduling Case Study.