Hi Juliana

The failure analysis of a material is categorized based on ductile or brittle materials as well as different mechanism. The maximum principal stress criteria uses the Maximum Principal Stress theory which says " when the maximum principal stress in a system greater than or equal to the yield stress (maximum strength at elastic limit), failure will occur".

In Abaqus, you can check the maximum principal stress from Result>Field Output. Then from Invariant option list, select Max. Principal, and click Apply.

Hi Juliana,

A complete analysis of a system via ABAQUS includes the following steps:

1. Create a part

2. Define the material property

3. Assembly

4. Define the step

5. Create the boundary conditions

6. Apply the load

7. Mesh

8. Submit the job

Once you submit the job, the result would be available. You can find the stress values at the top left corner (perhaps in red!). Note that you can change the type of the stress that you are looking for -- Von Mises or Max principle, displacement, etc -- by changing the parameter type. ( e.g 'S' stands for Von Mises)

The other alternative is, as mentioned by Abubakar Gambo Mohammed , to check the result by opening the result tab > Field output, and so on.

You can evaluate the maximum principal stress and displacement at failure from a tensile test. The true fracture stress and the corresponding displacement should be input for analysis.