Introduction to ABAQUS 2025
SIMULIA is the FEA-based simulation brand from Dassault Systèmes, and it can now be accessed either through standalone products like ABAQUS or within the 3DEXPERIENCE Platform. This article focuses on understanding the licensing for the standalone products within the portfolio (ABAQUS, fe-safe, TOSCA and Isight). If you are interested in accessing SIMULIA through the 3DEXPERIENCE, check out this link.
We’ll begin with ABAQUS and learning what tokens are, how they work and how many you might need. Then we’ll move on to the extended packaging and what added products that allows you access to.
The ABAQUS Unified FEA product suite offers powerful and complete solutions for both routine and sophisticated engineering problems covering a vast spectrum of industrial applications. Rather than carrying out simulation using niche simulation tools from different vendors, SIMULIA delivers a scalable suite of unified analysis products that allow all users, regardless of their simulation expertise or domain focus, to collaborate and seamlessly share simulation data and approved methods without loss of information fidelity. Click this link to learn more about ABAQUS.
Introduction to ‘Tokens’ and ‘Credits’
When you ‘buy’ ABAQUS, you’re actually purchasing either tokens or credits that allow you access to use the software. Every time you open up an ABAQUS graphical user interface (or GUI) or launch a job using the solver, the software will ping the license server to make sure that you have enough tokens/credits available and then hold/consume those until you’re done. Each action requires a different number (and sometimes type) of tokens/credits and that’s where it can feel like it gets complicated. But in a nutshell, more GUI sessions, more jobs, and jobs with more cores require more capacity. This allows companies to scale their install for more engineers and more power without having to buy a whole new install each time – like you would do with, say, a video game. Hopefully, we can break it down so you can get the maximum efficiency from your install, while keeping costs to a reasonable minimum.
ABAQUS Tokens
ABAQUS tokens can be packaged in a couple of different ways, Extended (QXT) and Unified License Model (ULM) (SUN/SRU), with both allowing access to a handful of added software included in the portfolio. For the sake of this post, we’ll focus exclusively on the Unified License Model since this offers the most flexibility and also carries the majority of the discounts and promotions offered by Dassault.
The number of ULM tokens required does not increase linearly in relation to the number of CPUs you want to run on. To understand how many tokens you’ll need to run jobs of different sizes, check out the table below. We’ve categorized the CPUs into typical denominations. Also note that we’ve added the extra tokens required for GPU acceleration, which takes 5 additional tokens. However, the benefit this can bring to you is substantial. GPU acceleration is a powerful method to speed up analysis in certain situations and where you have a GPU available to the machine on which you are running. We’ll be sure to publish some benchmarking and advice on how best to use GPU acceleration soon.
* The formula to calculate number of tokens required to run on n CPUs is:
Cores<=2 = 15 SRU, Cores>2 = ROUND(14.427*LN(Cores)+5,0)
Introduction to the Portfolio Products
ABAQUS ULM Tokens allow true flexibility when it comes to harnessing the power of the SIMULIA portfolio. With this option, access to fe-safe, TOSCA and Isight becomes possible with the very same tokens that you use to run ABAQUS. Below is a short introduction to the additional software packages, but please feel free to click the links and browse them in detail on our website to learn more.
fe-safe is a durability simulation software that pairs seamlessly with ABAQUS. This allows prediction of fatigue life to be made based on your already existing jobs, as well as directly interfacing with all other major FEA suites. With capability to deal with rubber, composites, cast iron and welds, fe-safe is truly industry-leading.
The TOSCA optimization suite offers fast and powerful structural and flow optimization based on FEA and CFD simulations. Combining rapid optimization solutions for both structures and fluid flow systems, TOSCA offers unparalleled capability to streamline the design process.
Isight allows for the automation of multiple cross-disciplinary models and their execution via distributed compute resources while chained simulation process flows traditionally require painstaking manual transition – slowing progress, reducing efficiency and, potentially, introducing errors.
Portfolio Product Token Requirements
With the ULM tokens, you can access the complimentary products discussed above. Similarly, each product GUI requires one QAX token and its solver/processor works on SRU tokens. The table below defines the tokens required to use each of the portfolio products individually:
What Do You Need?
Making a decision on token purchasing can be a daunting prospect. SIMULIA makes it possible to configure almost any combination of simulation capability – but with all the different options available, it is important that you consult with a knowledgeable simulation partner before such a significant outlay.
Get in touch with Fidelis to schedule a customized demo of the available software and we can help you customize your token pool to meet all of your simulation needs!
