I can tell you some words only about Comsol and Ansys because I haven't worked with Abaqus so far. So:

COMSOL is a first choice for scientific people which are working also with Matlab. This software is focused on multiphysics problems and it is very open for any user input, new functions etc. Geometry modeling is a hard job, but import function is working well.

ANSYS is still divided into Classic and Workbench modeller. Workbench is like CAD program and is very popular in the industry. Solvers provided by Ansys are very robust and effective. If you plan to do something 'un-typically' then the APDL programming can be very useful, but it is better to combine it with the Classic Ansys.

Summary: This are two different FEM programs. I am using both depending on needs: Ansys for stress/strain analysis for the industry and Comsol in complicated scientific analysis. In my opinion for materials engineering Comsol will be the best choice because of the ability to definition of any type of physics problems. Please, do not expect that the program is easy to use :-)

I use COMSOL for most of numerical simulations. The main reason is its capability of real multi-physics. It may require a little bit of enhancement for fluid-dynamics. Other than that, COMSOL can dominate numerical simulation world.

Abaqus is designed for nonlinear finite element analysis. It is familiar both in automotive and aerospace industry due to the same. However, the learning time for Abaqus is more than Ansys. Ansys comes with its trademark APDL and Workbench. Workbench is way easier to learn due to its GUI. So my suggestion is to start with Ansys workbench and then shift to APDL. In case of nonlinear modeling you may consider Abaqus. 

I had the same question just couple of weeks ago. I tried ANSIS, Abaqus and COMSOL. IMHO, COMSOL is more easy for start and more sutable for phisiscs. It is important, that in COMSOL you could work with objects with several nm size, but in case of Abaqus it is almost impossible.   

yes...i used COMSOL for numerical simulation& it's also easy to build in multiple nm size with multiple physics,which is more suitable for finite element analysis....

what a question!... would you please tell me: which one is better: rice or bread?!

it depends what do you want? what is your background... 

good luck

Ansys is element based and other two are equation based software .the equation based fem software is easy to learn for a beginner.

@ Dr. A. Chennakesava Reddy 

Dear sir,

I purchased your book 3 years back and started my learning of Ansys were step by step procedure given for easy learning of Ansys

Thanks and regards

Prabhakar

for the question asked I am familiar with only Ansys, I haven't  worked on Cosmol and Abacus so it will be not right to answer  the question

I can tell you some words only about Comsol and Ansys because I haven't worked with Abaqus so far. So:

COMSOL is a first choice for scientific people which are working also with Matlab. This software is focused on multiphysics problems and it is very open for any user input, new functions etc. Geometry modeling is a hard job, but import function is working well.

ANSYS is still divided into Classic and Workbench modeller. Workbench is like CAD program and is very popular in the industry. Solvers provided by Ansys are very robust and effective. If you plan to do something 'un-typically' then the APDL programming can be very useful, but it is better to combine it with the Classic Ansys.

Summary: This are two different FEM programs. I am using both depending on needs: Ansys for stress/strain analysis for the industry and Comsol in complicated scientific analysis. In my opinion for materials engineering Comsol will be the best choice because of the ability to definition of any type of physics problems. Please, do not expect that the program is easy to use :-)

Abaqus is different from Ansys and Comsol, that are CFD programmes. Ansys is hard to learn, but there are some tutorials on the internet. I never worked with Comsol, but I think that conduction is nbetter described in Comsol.

Dear Ahmed,

I think the question should be which program works better for the problem(s) you are attacking. The three programs can handle typical engineering problems but each program will be more powerful than others when targeting certain type of problem. For example, COMSOL is very good when you are concerned about combining multiple physics at the same time whereas Abaqus allows the users to come up with their own subroutines. In regard to which one is easier to learn, I think Abaqus has more resources to learn compared to COMSOL. 

Recently I had started work with COMSOL,

-I feel COMSOL is relatively more user friendly compared to ANSYS. 

-Application based inbuilt model availability is more in COMSOL.

-Modelling & mesh generation is smooth

-Solution control is much better in ANSYS for complex flow problem for getting converged solution

I didn't work with Comsol, but have been working with Abaqus & ANSYS for so many years now. And, I'd say that it depends on what you want to do. Abaqus is definitely more user friendly compared to ANSYS classical, but ANSYS workbench is really easy to work with (but you lose some capabilities). It's hard to give one clear answer to your question.

Hi all,

Thanks for your input.

Does anyone have any ideas about the execution time of LS-Dyna in comparison to COMSOL?

For example, has anyone modelled the same problem using different software to have a comparison of their runtimes?

Thanks.

Abacus is easy to learn, and it is user friendly software. followed by Ansys and comsol.

Depending on the area of study choose these software accordingly. We can model any 3D object in softwares like AutoCAD, solid works etc and save it in .stl file, can be import in abacus, Ansys softwares.