Loading and Solution


Loading and Solution

The loading and solution phase starts with the /SOLU command. In this phase, you do the following tasks:

Other solution-related items - master DOF and gap conditions - are also defined in this phase.


Defining the analysis type and analysis options.

Analysis types are generic and independent of discipline:

On menu mode, control panels are available to define analysis type and analysis options. For non-menu mode, ANTYPE command replaces KAN.

   ANTYPE,    STATIC (or 0)
	      TRANS  (or 4)
	      MODAL  (or 2)
              etc.
   


Analysis Options

   MODOPT   ! Modal analysis options
   TRNOPT   ! Transient analysis options
   HROPT    ! Harmonic analysis options
   BUCOPT   ! Buckling analysis options
   SSTIF    ! Stress stiffening
   NROPT    ! Newton-Raphson options
   Etc.
   

Preconditioned Conjugate Gradient (PCG) solver has been added as an alternate to the default frontal solver. The PCG solver requires less file space but more memory than other solvers and is faster for larger models(wavefronts > 1000). PCG is well-suited for problems with very large, sparse, symmetric matrices, such as those encountered in magnetic field analysis.

   /SOLUTION
   ANTYPE,STATIC
   EQSLV,PCG
   . . . . . . . .
   


Applying loads

There are six categories of loads, each with a generic set of commands:

   Family     Category
   D          ! DOF Constraints (displacements,temperatures,...)
   F          ! "FORCES" (forces,moments,heatflows,...)
   SF         ! Surface Loads (pressures,convections,...)
   BF         ! Body Loads (temperatures,heat generations,...)
   ACEL       ! Inertia Loads (accelerations,...)
   LDREAD     ! Coupled-Field Loads (thermal strain,...)
   

1. DOF constraints

DOF constraints available in each discipline:

   Discipline      Degree of Freedom        ANSYS Label
   Structural      Translations             UX,UY,UZ
		   Rotations                ROTX,ROTY,ROTZ
   Thermal         Temperature              TEMP
   Magnetic        Vector Potential         AX,AY,AZ
		   Scalar Potential         MAG
   Electric        Voltage                  VOLT
   Fluid           Velocities               VX,VY,VZ
		   Pressure                 PRES
		   Turb. Kinetic Energy     ENKE
        	   Turb. Dissipa. Rate      ENDS
   

DOF constraint commands:

   Location        Commands

   Nodes         D,DSYMM,DLIST,DDELE,DSCALE,DCUM
   Keypoints     DK,DKLIST,DKDELE
   Lines         DL,DLLIST,DLDELE
   Areas         DA,DALIST,DADELE
   Transfer      DTRAN,SBCTRAN
   

2. "FORCE"

"FORCE" available in each discipline:

   Discipline    "Force"             ANSYS Label
   Structural    Forces              FX,FY,FZ
                 Moments             MX,MY,MZ
   Thermal       Heat Flow Rate      HEAT
   Magnetic      Current Segments    CSGX,CSGY,CSGZ
                 Magnetic Flux       FLUX
   Electric      Current             AMPS
   Fluid         Fluid Flow Rate     FLOW
                 Heat Flow Rate      HEAT
 

"FORCE" load commands:

   Location      Commands
   Nodes         F,FLIST,FDELE,FSCALE,FCUM
   Keypoints     FK,FKLIST,FKDELE
   Transfer      FTRAN,SBCTRAN

3. Surface loads

Surface loads available in each discipline:

   Discipline     Surface Load       ANSYS Label
   Structural     Pressure           PRES
   Thermal        Convection         CONV
                  Heat Flux          HFLUX
   Magnetic       Maxwell Surface    MXWF
   Electric       -none-             -none- 
   Fluid          Fluid-Structural   FSI
                  Impedance          IMPD
	          Convection         CONV
	          Heat Flux          HFLUX
   All            Superelement       SELV
                  Load Vector
 

Surface load commands:

   Location     Commands
   Nodes        SF,SFLIST,SFDELE,SFSCALE,SFCUM,SFFUN,
                SFGRAD
   Elements     SFE,SFELIS,SFEDEL,SFBEAM,SFFUN,SFGRAD
   Lines        SFL,SFLLIST,SFLDELE,SFGRAD
   Areas        SFA,SFALIST,SFADELE,SFGRAD
   Transfer     SFTRAN,SBCTRAN
 

e.g. NSEL,...

        SF,ALL,PRES,5000 ! Pressure on all selected nodes

4. Body loads

Body loads available in each discipline

   Discipline     Body Load               ANSYS Label
   Structural     Temperature             TEMP
                  Fluence                 FLUE
   Thermal        Heat Generation Rate    HGEN
   Magnetic       Current Density         JS
                  Virtual Displacement    MVDI
   Electric       -none-                 -none-
   Fluid          Heat Generation rate    HGEN

Body load commands:

   Location     Commands
   Nodes        BF,BFLIST,BFDELE,BFSCALE,BFCUM,BFUNIF
   Elemnets     BFE,BFELIS,BFEDEL,BFESCAL,BFECUM
   Keypoints    BFK,BFKLIST,BFKDELE
 

5. Inertia load

Inertia load commands are the same as at Revision 4.4.:

   ACEL,OMEGA,DOMEGA,CGLOC,CGOMEGA,DCGOMG,IRLF

6. Coupled-field load

Coupled-field loads are applied using the new command LDREAD which reads data from the results file and applies them as loads. For example,

   LDREAD,TEMP,,,5.78,,,THERMAL,RTH
reads temperature at time=5.78 from file THERMAL.RTH.


Displaying loads

Applied loads may be displayed with the following three commands:

   /PBC     ! For Ds and Fs
   /PSF     ! For SFs
   /PBF     ! For BFs
 

For examples:

   /PBC,U,,1       ! For displacements
   /PBC,F,,1       ! For forces
   /PBC,all,,a     ! For all appropriate symbols
   /PBC,ACEL,,1    ! Applied accelerations
   /PSF,PRES,NORM,1
   /PBF,TEMP,,1
 


Initiating the solution

SOLVE is the command that initiates the solution; it reads data from database to calculate solution and writes results to database and also to the results file.

This is the actual computing portion of the analysis, and a complex ANSYS job often requires considerable amount of CPU time. It is advisable that you save the database prior to executing the SOLVE command ( with "SAVE, filename,db") and exit the ANSYS program. Next, create a batch submit file as the following:

   # @$-lt 20:00
   # @$-lw 32mb
   # @$-eo
   # @$-me
   ANSYS <<'EOT'
   /BATCH
   /RESUME,<Filename>,db
   /SOLUTION
   SOLVE
   FINISH
   EXIT
   'EOT'
This batch job can then be submitted to the tiber with the "qsub" command:
        qsub batch-submit-file-name


Running an ANSYS job on the IBM RS6000 Cluster

The IBM RS6000 cluster machines are to be used as back-end machines, though users can login to the hudson and interactively run ANSYS. Users are requested to run ANSYS interactively only for preparing the ANSYS commands in /PREP7 and for reviewing the results in /POST1 or /POST26. The CPU intensive solution phase must be run in batch mode. If users abuse the trust and run the CPU intensive solution phase that makes hudson unavailable to other users, severe restrictions will be imposed to all ANSYS users. As a rule of thumb, if the SOLVE takes more than 3 minutes of CPU time, run it in batch.

Two of the RS6000s, snake and pecos, have been designated to run ANSYS batch jobs. The total size of files created by ANSYS cannot exceed 2 GB in /tmp in pecos, while it is possible to exceed 2 GB in snake by assigning files to two directories, /tmp and /wrk. Thus an ANSYS job that may create a total file size greater than 2 GB must run on snake. Users may follow the examples below to prepare an ANSYS batch script file on the hudson and submit it to the pecos or the snake by the qsub command with "-q ANSYS" or "-q ANSYS.snake". The ANSYS queue will run ANSYS on either pecos or snake, while ANSYS.snake will run ANSYS only on snake.

        qsub -q ANSYS .
        qsub -q ANSYS.snake .
The script file and ANSYS input file may be kept in your home directory or its subdirectory.

Example: An ANSYS batch script to run on an IBM RS6000:

       #@$-lt 20:00
       #@$-lw 32mb
       #@$-eo
       #@$-me
       date
       mkdir /tmp/tang
       cd /tmp/tang
       cp  /user/marge/spring* .
       /usr/local/bin/ANSYS  <<'EOT'
       /BATCH
    !  /assign,tri,spring,tri,/wrk/tang/    !!! Only for ANSYS.snake with
    !  /assign,emat,spring,emat,/wrk/tang/  !!! total file size > 2 GBs
       /input,spring,prep
       /input,spring,ldso
       /input,spring,post
       /input,spring,opt
       /input,spring,full
       /exit
       'EOT'
       ls -l /tmp/tang   !!! Check files created created by ANSYS
    !  ls -l /wrk/tang   !!! On snake only
       mv *.rst /tiber/support/tang/ANSYS/.
       mv *.db  /tiber/support/tang/ANSYS/.
       rm /tmp/tang/*    !!! Clean up your files to provide file space
    !  rm /wrk/tang/*    !!! for next job to use.

Moving files from pecos to your home directory

The ANSYS program creates several output files that are in the order of tens of megabytes in pecos temporary file space. These files are not interactively accessible because pecos is not directly accessible to user, but users can use rsh command to browse these files:

   rsh pecos ls -l /tmp/usrname
   rsh pecos cat /tmp/usrname/filename.out
   rsh pecos rm /tmp/usrname/xx.
To copy a file from /tmp/usrname on pecos to somewhere in your tiber directory, you need to have hudson.nist.gov in your tiber .rhosts and then use:
   rcp pecos:/tmp/usrname/xx subdir/xx
If your home directory is on hudson and the file is too large to keep on hudson, specify a full pathname to your tiber directory:
   rcp pecos:/tmp/marge/xx /tiber/nist/marge/xx


Specifying load step options

Multiple load steps can be solved by three methods:

In the load step file method, each load step is written(LSWRITE) to a different file - File.S01, File.S02, File.S03,..., etc. The action command LSSOLVE reads in these step files sequentially and initiates the solution for each step.

   ...
   Load data
   LSWRITE   ----> File.S01
   !
   Load data
   LSWRITE   ----> File.S02
   !
   Load data
   LSWRITE   ----> File.S03
   !
   ...
   LSSOLVE


Specifying load step options

New LSCLEAR command clears loads and load step options in the database, while LSREAD and LSDELE reads and deletes a load step file, respectively.

With the array parameter method, array parameters of type TABLE are used to define load versus time:

   *DIM,LOAD,TABLE,5
   LOAD(1)=0.0,560.0,560.0,238.5,0.0
   LOAD(1,0)=0.0,0.8,7.2,8.5,9.3
Then use a do-loop to apply the load and solve it:
   DTIME=0.01        ! Time step size
   *DO,TIMEV,1.0E-6,5.8,DTIME
     TIME,TIMEV
     F,293,FY,LOAD(TIMEV)
     SOLVE
   *ENDDO
The multiple SOLVE method defines load data, issues SOLVE; changes load data, issues SOLVE; and so on. This method is better suited for batch mode than for interactive mode.


Selecting Outputs

New output controls separate print and post:

   OUTPR,Item,FREQ,.....
   OUTRES,Item,FREQ,....
If you have already prepared an ANSYS input file with PREP7, at the system prompt, you can redirect the input file to ANSYS and run it in the background mode:
   ANSYS output-file-name &,   or
   /input,input-file-name,ext,dir  within ANSYS.

   /SOLU          ! Enter the SOLUTION processor
   ANTYPE,STATIC  ! Static (steady-state) analysis
   TUNIF,0        ! Initial Uniform Temp = 0
   KBC,1          ! Step loading
   CNVTOL,TEMP,1.0,1.0E-6
   CNVTOL,HEAT,1.0,1.0E-6
   /FORMAT,,E,14,6
   PI=3.1415927
   NSEL,S,,,91,95 ! Select node 91-95, Y=4.0-4.2
   F,ALL,HEAT,10/PI      ! Constant heat flow rate per radian
                         ! Total heat load = 10000 nW 
   NSEL,S,LOC,Y,-3.5
   D,ALL,TEMP,0          ! Base Temperature
   ALLSEL
   OUTPR,NSOL,1
   OUTRES,NSOL,1  ! Write node solutions to the result file
   /PBC,HEAT,1    ! Show heat rate load
   /PBC,TEMP,1    ! Show boundary temp load
   EPLOT
   AUTOTS,OFF     ! Turn off automatic load-stepping
   NSUBST,20      ! Only 1 substep is sufficient
   SOLVE
   SAVE
   FINISH          ! End of SOLUTION process
   /POST1         ! Enter postprocess
   * ASK,LS,'Load Step to Display LS:',1
   SET,LS,LAST
   /TITLE,TEMPERATURE CONTOUR PLOT
   NSEL,S,,,1,150
   PLNSOL,TEMP    ! Display temperature
   /SOLUTION      ! Enter the SOLUTION processor
   ANTYPE,TRANS   ! Set analysis type = transient
   TUNIF,0        ! Initially uniform temp = 0
   TIMINT,ON      ! Transient effect considered
   KBC,1          ! Step loading
   /FORMAT,,E,14,6
   PI=3.1415927
   TIME,100       ! Total of 100 sec
   DELTIME,600    ! What does it mean?
   AUTOTS,OFF     ! Turn off automatic load-stepping
   NSUBST,400     ! Use 400 substeps - 4 steps per sec
   NSEL,S,,,91,95 ! Select node 91-95, i.e., Y = 4.0 - 4.2
   F,ALL,HEAT,10.0/PI     ! Constant heat flow rate per radian
                          ! Total of 10000 nW applied
   NSEL,S,LOC,Y,-3.5
   D,ALL,TEMP,0
   ALLSEL
   /PBC,HEAT,1    ! Show heat load
   /PBC,TEMP,1    ! Show temperature load
   EPLOT
   OUTPR,NSOL,4
   OUTRES,NSOL,4  ! Write all solutions to the result file
   *DO,TIMEVAL,BGNTIME,ENDTIME,DELTIME
   TIME,TIMEVAL
   SOLVE
   *ENDDO
   FINISH         ! End of SOLUTION process
   *ASK,LS,'Load Step to Display LS:',1
   SET,LS,LAST
   /POST26         ! Enter postprocess time history
   /TITLE,TEMPERATURE CONTOUR PLOT
   PLNSOL,TEMP    ! Display temperature
   NSOL,2,1,TEMP,Node-1
   NSOL,3,11,TEMP,Node-11
   NSOL,4,41,TEMP,Node-41
   NSOL,5,71,TEMP,Node-71
   NSOL,6,91,TEMP,Node-91
   NSOL,7,101,TEMP,Node-101
   PRNSOL,2,3,4,5


Hai Tang, last updated December 12, 1995