Skip to content

Ansys

module avail ansys/

ANSYS is a general nonlinear multiphysics software offering structural and thermodynamic analysis, continuum flow analysis, analysis of electrostatic and electromagnetic fields and acoustic analysis.

ANSYS can be run either from module or from a service.

Usage

OnDemand

ANSYS can be run in a browser as OnDemand service. This is the most straighforward and simplest way.

Kubernetes

Another option is to use Kubernetes service, which offers ANSYS application as a Rancher application.

Module

Although this application can be used in text-only mode, in most use cases you will need graphical interface. We recommend to use remote desktop.

Running ANSYS from a module is recommended to advanced users or as a fallback option in case OnDemand and/or Kubernetes service cannot fulfill the user's requirements.

License

All installed ANSYS versions are available to all MetaCentrum users without location restriction.

Check the number of currently available licenses:

module add ansys/2021-R1
lmutil lmstat -c 1055@lm-brno.ics.muni.cz -a    # list all licences for all software

# filter specific license feature "cfd_base"
lmutil lmstat -c 1055@lm-brno.ics.muni.cz -a | grep cfd_base

or you can use Ansys specific license tool

`which ansysli_util` -statli 2325@lm-brno.ics.muni.cz -printavail

# with filter to specific license feature "cfd_preppost":
`which ansysli_util` -statli 2325@lm-brno.ics.muni.cz -printavail | grep -B 3 -A 6 "FEATURENAME: cfd_preppost"

Number of available licenses:

Ansys Academic Research CFD (Ansys Fluent + Ansys CFX) in quantity of 25 parallel runs
Ansys Academic Research Mechanical in quantity of 5 parallel runs
additional tool Ansys HPC in quantity of 512 pieces (=> cores)

Available tools (complete list of available products is HERE):
    FLUENT : command fluent
    CFX : command cfx* (e.g. cfx5, cfx5launch, cfx5post, etc.)
    CFD Post : command cfdpost
    ICEM-CFD : command icemcfd
    Workbench : command runwb2

Ask scheduler for licence by adding one of the following options:

-l ansys-cfd=1     # 1 license of Ansys CFD
-l ansys-mechwb=1  # 1 license of Ansys Mechanical Workbench
-l ansys-anshpc=Z  # Z licenses of Ansys HPC

Available ANSYS products

The following Ansys products are available within the MetaCentrum infrastructure:

  • Ansys CFD - product combining two primary general-purpose fluids simulation products offered by ANSYS - Ansys Fluent and Ansys CFX.
    • Ansys Fluent contains the broad physical modeling capabilities needed to model flow, turbulence, heat transfer, and reactions for industrial applications.
    • Ansys CFX is a general purpose fluid dynamics program for simulating all types of models concerning fluid flow, including effects of temperature(conductance, radiance).
  • Ansys Mechanical - product for simulating of structural and thermodynamic tasks. The engineering simulation product provides a complete set of elements behavior, material models and equation solvers for a wide range of mechanical design problems.

Note

All ANSYS tools can utilize at most 4 local CPUs for task computation. For more demanding tasks in grid environment it's necessary to use additional tool – Ansys HPC. Every ANSYS HPC license allows for distribution of computation to another available (local or remote) processor.

Ansys Fluent

Ansys Fluent supports both interactive and batch use.

Interactive usage

For graphic environment, open the GUI interface.

For text-only regime login to a frontend and ask for interactive job in the standard way

ssh skirit.ics.muni.cz
qsub -I -l select=X:ncpus=Y:mem=Zgb  # text-only regime
Start Fluent and proceed according to onscreen instructions

module add ansys/18.2
fluent # graphic regime
fluent -g # text-only regime

Batch usage

Login to a frontend

Prepare input data and batch script -- in the script, use following commands:

a) for serial computation:

module add ansys/18.2
fluent <version> -g -i input_file  # serial initialization of Fluent

b) for paralel/distributed computation:

module add ansys/18.2
cpus=`cat $PBS_NODEFILE | wc -l`
fluent <version> -t${cpus} -p -cnf=$PBS_NODEFILE -g < flow.input  # parallel/distributed initialization of Fluent

Note: you can get list of available versions by running $ fluent -v.

Submit the batch script:

skirit$ qsub -l select=X:ncpus=Y:mem=Zgb batch_script.sh

Parallel batch usage

It seems that best usage of parallel fluent differs from HW where fluent runs (infiniband vs. omnipath), as a rule of thumb you can use:

  if test $(sort -u < $PBS_NODEFILE |wc -l) -gt 1 -a -w /dev/hfi1_0;then  
          MPI_IMP=-mpi=intel
  fi
  fluent 2ddp -g -t$PBS_RESC_TOTAL_PROCS $MPI_IMP -cnf=$PBS_NODEFILE -i case.jou > case.out 2>&1

To utilize homogeneous cluster (fluent cannot optimally use nodes with different performance) , one should submit via:

qsub -l select=N:...:infiniband=^none -l place=group=cluster ...

Tip

To minimalize time needed for communication vith cortex component and increase performace, one can try to increase /solve/set/reporting-interval.

Tip

Check the scalability of parallel run before spawning at dozens of processors, maybe the 16cpu run is faster then 32cpu one due to big communication overhead.

Ansys CFX

Interactive usage

For graphic environment, open the GUI interface.

For text-only regime login to a frontend and ask for interactive job in the standard way

ssh skirit.ics.muni.cz
qsub -I -l select=X:ncpus=Y:mem=Zgb  # text-only regime
Start CFX and proceed according to onscreen instructions

cfx5 # graphical mode
cfx5launch # text-only mode

Batch usage

Login to a frontend

Prepare input data and batch script -- in the script, use following commands:

a) for serial computation:

module add ansys/18.2
cfx5pre -batch inputfile.pre [...]
cfx5solve -def inputfile [...]
cfdpost -batch inputfile.cse [...]
b) for paralel/distributed computation:

module add ansys/18.2

#### Create host list
hl=`sort $PBS_NODEFILE | uniq -c | awk '{print $2"*"$1}' | tr '\n' ',' | sed 's/,$//'`

#### Run the computation, e.g.
cfx5solve -def 0.def -ccl 0.ccl -part-large -start-method "Platform MPI Distributed Parallel" -par-dist $hl
Submit the batch script:

skirit$ qsub -l select=X:ncpus=Y:mem=Zgb batch_script.sh

Ansys Workbench

For graphic environment, open the GUI interface.

Start Workbench in the graphical mode

runwb2 # graphical mode

Documentation

Software documentation is available locally in program's directory:

  • version Ansys 18.2: /software/ansys-18.2/doc/readme.html
  • version Ansys 18.0: /software/ansys-18.0/doc/readme.html
  • version Ansys 17.2: /software/ansys-17.2/doc/readme.html
  • version Ansys 17.1: /software/ansys-17.1/doc/readme.html
  • version Ansys 16.2: /software/ansys-16.2/doc/readme.html
  • version Ansys 16.1: /software/ansys-16.1/doc/readme.html
  • version Ansys 15: /software/ansys-15/doc/readme.html
  • version Ansys 14: /software/ansys-14/doc/readme.html