[Scons-users] SCons for Ansys APDL Analysis

[Hubley, Christopher (GE Aerospace, US)]

> So it looks like you can scan the input file to find the dependencies.
I'm sure that you could, but I think it'd take a bit of noodling be tough to
make it bulletproof.
There aren't namespaces in APDL. If I read in another file with the /INPUT
command, it just executes The code in that file. So, a scanner might have to
descend into dependencies to look for more dependencies.


> Though it writes to it's input file?
There is typically a binary database file which is a dependency of a
APDL script. The database contains FEM nodes, elements, boundary conditions,
model settings, etc.
When running a mission analysis, we will update this database for each time
step. When the model is solved, Ansys creates a second results database, and
Some other files (restart files, etc.). A mission might include hundreds of
timesteps.


> Can you get it to write to a different named file?
Yes, you can copy/rename the input file to a new filename within the script.
I think that this kind of coding discipline would be required for SCons.

Perhaps a SCons-compatible APDL script might look something like this:

    ! MyFile.inp
    /COPY, path/to/PREV_DATABASE,   db,, DATABASE_NAME,   db   ! <- An input
    /COPY, path/to/PREV_DATABASE, emat,, DATABASE_NAME, emat   ! <- An input
    /COPY, path/to/PREV_DATABASE, esav,, DATABASE_NAME, esav   ! <- An input
    /FILENAM, DATABASE_NAME
    RESUME

    /SOLU
        ANTYPE, STATIC, RESTART
        /INPUT, cut_boundary_loads, inp   ! <- An input
        /INPUT, nodal_temperatures, inp   ! <- An input
        /INPUT, pressure_loads, inp   ! <- An input
        SOLVE   ! <- Creates a results database (DATABASE_NAME.rst, .emat, .esav)
                !    and other files
    FINISH
    SAVE ! Updates DATABASE_NAME.db


One issue that I have is that I'd like to understand what SCons is doing when I
set "duplicate=False".

I've only gotten Ansys to run with "duplicate=True", but then that leaves me
with a bunch of extra files in my build directory. It'd be great if I could 
clean that up afterwards without SCons requiring a rebuild.