

It was initially distributed via CDC's Cybernet service. In the early days, ABAQUS was designed primarily for the nonlinear static and dynamic analysis of structures, and nonlinear steady and transient analysis of heat transfer or conduction problems.

ABAQUS version 3 was released in June 1979.

External imageĪBAQUS version 1 was created for a specific client - Westinghouse Hanford Company which used the software to analyze nuclear fuel rod assemblies. The original logo of ABAQUS company is a stylized abacus calculator, and its beads are set to the company's official launch date of February 1st, 1978 (2-1-1978). David Hibbitt's talk at MIT on "Evolution of an Engineering Simulation Software Venture" in April 2019, YouTube video Hibbitt and Sorensen had met while completing their Ph.Ds at Brown University while Karlsson encountered the two in his capacity as a support analyst in a data centre in Stockholm. Paul Sorensen co-founded the company later known as Hibbitt, Karlsson & Sorensen, Inc., (HKS) in Jan, 1978 to develop and market ABAQUS software. The early history of ABAQUS is very tightly connected with the early history of MARC Analysis Research Corporation. The name of Abaqus was initially written as ABAQUS when it was first released. Abaqus/CAE uses the fox-toolkit for GUI development. The Abaqus products use the open-source scripting language Python for scripting and customization.
