Thanks Gurmeet, it depends how the modeling is done, what you said is generally correct provided that (i think) the modeling is near to reality and simplification is reduced, for instance in case a subsea pipeline (with concrete) is modeled by solid elements (not beam elements as is normal practice) the Stress Concentration Factor in the field joints (where the pipeline shall be welded and there is discontinuity on the stiffness) can be extracted from FEM. (For clarity, in case a simple beam with various cross sections is modeled in FEM using beam elements, the SCF which is calculated by FEM is far from the reality, because beam element is not suitable for this purpose and to get precise results solid elements provides better results.)
However, as a normal practice the pipeline is modeled by beam elements and the stiffness of concrete is usually ignored (ref to DNV-OS-F101 (Oct 2007) 5C207), and to count the SCF in the field joints it is manually calculated and then added to FEM. This has already been considered in OFFPIPE (FEM for subsea pipeline installation) and ANSYS (beam elements Pipe16 or Pipe20). However, I could not find the same in ABAQUS.
Regards,
Amir