UEL allows you to define an element.
Helius PFA has the capability to forward on to the custom Abaqus user subroutine UEL. In other words, you can use Helius PFA in conjunction with the Abaqus UEL subroutine.
The UEL subroutine can be used to define the behavior of an element. Refer to the Abaqus Documentation for further details.
To use the UEL subroutine with Helius PFA, you need to include UEL with the Helius PFA subroutine build. Those instructions can be found here for Windows or here for Linux. In addition, you must set the USER_ID_LO and USER_ID_HI environment variables in the hpfa.env file. These variables will tell Helius PFA the range of element type ID numbers (JTYPE in UEL) to forward on to your custom UEL. For example:
&HPFA_ENV MATERIAL_FILE_DIR = 'C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Helius PFA 2016\Materials' USER_ID_LO = 100 USER_ID_HI = 110 /
In the example hpfa.env file above, any JTYPE between 100 and 110 (inclusive) will be passed to your custom UEL.