[CIG-SHORT] Import Abaqus

[Birendra jha]

Dear CIG-SHORT,

I am trying to import an Abaqus *.inp file for analysis in PyLith. This file defines node coord, element connectivity, nodesets, element sets, materials (denisty variation with depth, constant Young's mod and Poisson' ratio), boundary condition (on lateral nodeset and bottom nodeset), and initial condition (void ratio).

What is a good way to go about this? I loaded the abaqus file into Cubit and I can export *.exo file from there which contains basic grid info (coord, connectivity, nodesets) but I am having a hard time with material regions. When I import abaqus file into cubit it gives warning

WARNING: Can not assign material for block EL_R001...block does not exist.

for all the regions except the last one which is read fine, a block is created in its name with correct material properties assigned to it.

Note the mesh shows up fine on cubit display. Its tree shows all my Groups, Materials, BCs and 1 volume. It is missing the block or region info. How can I create the missing blocks in cubit? I tried to create from individual group:
> block 2 group 56
WARNING: Some elements not added because they are already in other blocks.
Added Group 56 to Block 2
ERROR: Attempted to create empty block; removing block 2

I need the blocks so that I can assign material ids and then assign depth and region varying density to different regions.

I will contact cubit about this, but just thought I will give it a try at cig-short first.

Thanks and regards
Birendra