Hi.
What preprocessor are You using to run tasks in abaqus solver? I'm using abaqus/cae and looking for alternative. I've heard some words about ANSA and HyperMesh that they are quite universal.
I use hypermesh for this but it does depend on what you are doing. Some or the more complicated parts of abaqus may not be fully supported. For what I do I find hypermesh absolutly ideal The only time I have had problems is when I had to include material orientation of a composite went I used I-Deas instead. However hypemesh now has a superb laminate composite builder now so that may well have sorted that small issue.
I find CAE very capable. What are you having difficulty with? FeMap is also one of my favorites. I would not recommend Patran or Ansys. I hope this helps.
I want to switch because I don't have direct control in choosing element types (the way I can do in ANSYS). I don't know which element type is chosen by software when I create connection between instances. I know that I can choose sort of behaviour when I use connectors, but I don't know what kind of connector is used before creating an imp file (I think)
Another thing is mesh. I saw how easy is to discretize a model in HyperMesh and I find it much more difficult in abaqus/cae. Maybe I have to work out some good habits rather than look for an alternative
If you already know how to use hyper-mesh then go for it. But if you saw somebody else using it, you may want to find out how long it took them get there.
I have never used connectors. But you can pick element types in ABAQUS CAE.