Environment Settings Hierarchy
Abaqus
environment settings are processed in the following order:
-
The host-level environment settings. These settings are applied to all
Abaqus
jobs run on the designated computer.
-
The user-level environment settings. These settings are applied to all
Abaqus
jobs run in your account.
For
Abaqus
to locate the environment file in your home directory on
Windows
platforms, the full path to your home directory must be specified using the
HOME
environment variable or a combination of the
HOMEDRIVE and
HOMEPATH
environment variables.
-
The job-level environment settings. These settings are applied to only
the designated
Abaqus
job.
Environment settings can be specified more than once. The last value
processed will be the one used for the setting if it is defined at more than
one level or if it is given twice at the same level.
Abaqus
environment settings are set using special files in specific directories. The
host-level (site-level) settings are set in the
install_dir/os/SMA/site/custom_v6.env
file or abaqus_v6.env file in the installation. You can change these settings by creating an
environment file named abaqus_v6.env in your home
directory and/or the current directory. Settings in the home directory file
will be applied to all jobs that you run. Settings in the current directory
file will be applied only to jobs run from the current directory.
Syntax
The entries given in the environment file must be given using
Python
language syntax. Entries take the form:
parameter=value
The following is a brief overview of the
Python
syntax rules:
-
The parameter must always have a value. The value can be any valid
Python
constant or expression.
-
A string value must be enclosed in a pair of double or single quotes.
-
Comments are preceded by a number sign (#). All characters following a
number sign on a line are ignored. Number signs within a quoted string are part
of the string, not the beginning of a comment.
-
Blank lines are ignored.
-
Embedded single quotes do not require special handling if they are
placed within a double quoted string. For example, "my
value's" is translated as my
value's . The same holds true for double quotes embedded in a
single quoted string. Quotes of the same type as the enclosing quotes can be
embedded if they are prefixed by the backslash (\) character.
-
Triple quoted (""") strings can span more than one line, and no special
treatment of quotes within the string is necessary. Entries take the form:
parameter="""
multi-line
value
"""
-
Lists must be enclosed in parentheses (( )) or square brackets ([ ]).
Individual items in the list are separated by commas. If the list is enclosed
in parentheses and contains only one value, a comma has to follow the value.
String list items must be enclosed in quotes. Entries take the form:
parameter=(value1, value2, value3)
Troubleshooting
Problems caused by faulty environment settings can be diagnosed by using the
command
abaqus information=environment
This command prints all of the current environment settings.
Command Line Default Parameters
The following parameters provide default values for various settings that
would otherwise have to be specified on the command line (see
Abaqus/Standard and Abaqus/Explicit Execution,
and
Abaqus/Standard, Abaqus/Explicit, and FMU Co-Simulation Execution).
Values given on the command line override values specified in the environment
files.
- cpus
-
Number of processors to use if parallel processing is available. The default
is 2 for the co-simulation execution
procedure; otherwise, the default is 1 .
- domains
-
The number of parallel domains in
Abaqus/Explicit.
If the value is greater than 1, the domain decomposition will be performed
regardless of the values of the parallel and
cpus parameters. However, if
parallel=domain,
the value of cpus must be evenly divisible
into the value of domains. If this
parameter is not set, the number of domains defaults to the number of
processors used during the analysis run if
parallel=domain
or to 1 if
parallel=loop.
- double_precision
-
The default precision version of
Abaqus/Explicit
to run if you do not specify the precision version on the
abaqus command line. Possible values are
EXPLICIT (only
the
Abaqus/Explicit
analysis is run in double precision),
BOTH (both the
Abaqus/Explicit
packager and analysis are run in double precision),
CONSTRAINT (the
constraint packager and constraint solver in
Abaqus/Explicit
are run in double precision, while the
Abaqus/Explicit
packager and analysis continue to run in single precision), or
OFF (both the
Abaqus/Explicit
packager and analysis are run in single precision). The default is
OFF .
- parallel
-
The default parallel method in
Abaqus/Explicit
if you do not specify the parallel method on the
abaqus command line. Possible values are
DOMAIN or LOOP ;
the default value is DOMAIN .
- run_mode
-
Default run mode (interactive, background, or batch) if you do not specify
the run mode on the abaqus command line. The default
for
abaqusanalysis
and
abaqussysVerify
is "background" , while the default for
abaqusviewer is
"interactive" .
- scratch
-
Directory to be used for scratch files. This directory must exist (i.e., it
will not be created by
Abaqus)
and must have write permission assigned. On
Linux
platforms the default value is the value of the
$TMPDIR environment variable or
/tmp if
$TMPDIR is not defined. On
Windows
platforms the default value is the value of the
%TEMP% environment variable or
\TEMP if this variable is not defined. During
the analysis a subdirectory will be created under this directory to hold the
analysis scratch files. The name of the subdirectory is constructed from your
user name, the job id, and the job's process identifier. The subdirectory and
its contents are deleted upon completion of the analysis.
- standard_parallel
-
The default parallel execution mode in
Abaqus/Standard
if you do not specify the parallel mode on the
abaqus command line. If this parameter is set equal
to ALL , both the element operations and the
solver will run in parallel. If this parameter is set equal to
SOLVER , only the solver will run in parallel.
The default parallel execution mode is ALL .
- gpus
-
The GPGPU direct solver acceleration
setting in
Abaqus/Standard
if you do not specify the GPGPU solver
acceleration option on the abaqus command line. By
default, GPGPU solver acceleration is not
activated. The value of this parameter is the number of
GPGPUs to be used in an
Abaqus/Standard
analysis. In an MPI-based analysis, this is
the number of GPGPUs to be used on each host.
- unconnected_regions
-
If this variable is set to ON ,
Abaqus/Standard
will create element and node sets in the output database for unconnected
regions in the model during a datacheck
analysis. Element and node sets created with this option are named
MESH COMPONENT N ,
where N is the component number. The default value
is OFF .
- order_parallel
-
The ordering mode for the direct sparse solver in
Abaqus/Standard
if you do not specify the ordering mode on the
abaqus command line. If this parameter is set equal
to OFF , the ordering procedure will not run in
parallel. If this parameter is set equal to
ON , the ordering procedure will run in
parallel. The default ordering mode is ON .
System Resource Parameters
The following environment file variable can be set after the code has been
installed to change the resources used by
Abaqus
and, therefore, to improve system performance. By default,
Abaqus
detects the physical memory on a machine (or on each compute node in a cluster)
and allocates a percentage of the available memory. The default percentage is
80%. You can override the default percentage by specifying a number followed by
the percentage sign. The variable can also be defined as the number of
megabytes or the number of gigabytes. More detailed information about changing
the system resources used by
Abaqus
is given in
Managing Memory and Disk Resources.
- memory
-
Maximum amount of memory or maximum percentage of the physical memory that
can be allocated during the input file preprocessing and during the
Abaqus/Standard
analysis phase. For parallel execution on computer clusters, this memory limit
specifies the maximum amount of memory that can be allocated on each process.
System Customization Parameters
The following is a discussion of some additional environment file parameters
that are commonly used. A complete listing of parameters can be found in the
.
- ask_delete
-
If this parameter is set equal to OFF , you
will not be asked whether old job files of the same file name should be
deleted; the files will be deleted automatically. The default value is
ON .
- auto_calculate
-
If this parameter is set to
ANALYSIS , all
output database postprocessing in
Abaqus/Standard
is performed as part of analysis execution. If this parameter is set to
ON , output
database postprocessing is performed by the postprocessing calculator at the
end of an analysis if the execution procedure detects that output database
postprocessing is necessary. If this parameter is set to
OFF , no output
database postprocessing occurs even if the execution procedure detects that it
is necessary to postprocess the output database file. The default value is
ANALYSIS . In
Abaqus/Explicit
auto_calculate=ANALYSIS
is equivalent to
auto_calculate=ON .
- auto_convert
-
If this parameter is set equal to ON and an
Abaqus/Explicit
analysis is run in parallel with
parallel=domain,
the
convert=select,
convert=state,
and
convert=odb
options will be run automatically at the end of the analysis. The default value
is ON .
- average_by_section
-
This parameter is used only for an
Abaqus/Standard
analysis. If this parameter is set equal to OFF ,
the averaging regions for output written to the data
(.dat) file and results (.fil) file
are based on the structure of the elements. If this parameter is set equal to
ON , the averaging regions also take into account
underlying values of element properties and material constants. In problems
with many section and/or material definitions the default value of
OFF will, in general, give much better
performance than the nondefault value of ON . See
Output to the Data and Results Files
for further details on the averaging scheme.
- mp_host_list
-
List of host machine names to be used for an
MPI-based parallel
Abaqus
analysis, including the number of processors to be used on each machine; for
example,
mp_host_list=[['maple',1],['pine',1],['oak',2]]
indicates that, if the number of cpus
specified for the analysis is 4, the analysis will use one processor on a
machine called maple , one processor on a machine
called pine , and two processors on a machine
called oak . The total number of processors
defined in the host list has to be greater than or equal to the number of
cpus specified for the analysis. If the host
list is not defined,
Abaqus
will run on the local system. When using a supported queuing system, this
parameter does not need to be defined. If it is defined, it will get overridden
by the queuing environment.
- mp_mode
-
Set this variable equal to MPI to indicate
that the MPI components are available on the
system. Set
mp_mode=THREADS
to use the thread-based parallelization method. The default value is
MPI where applicable.
- odb_output_by_default
-
If this parameter is set equal to ON , output
database output will be generated automatically. If this parameter is set equal
to OFF , output database request keywords must be
placed in an input file to obtain output database output. The default value is
ON .
Co-Simulation Parameters
The following environment file variables provide default settings for
co-simulation between solvers using the direct coupling interface. This
includes
Abaqus/Standard
to
Abaqus/Explicit
co-simulation and co-simulation between
Abaqus
and certain third-party analysis programs.
- cosimulation_port
-
Set cosimulation_port equal to the port
number used for the connection. The default value is
48000 .
- cosimulation_timeout
-
Set cosimulation_timeout equal to the
timeout period in seconds.
Abaqus
terminates if it does not receive any communication from the coupled analysis
program during the time specified. The default value is
3600 seconds.
The following environment file variables provide settings that allow you to
allocate CPUs for co-simulation jobs submitted using the co-simulation
execution procedure. This includes
Abaqus/Standard
to
Abaqus/Explicit
co-simulation (see
Abaqus/Standard, Abaqus/Explicit, and FMU Co-Simulation Execution).
- cpus_weight_std
-
This option controls the allocation of CPUs to
Abaqus/Standard
analyses. The actual CPU allocation for
Abaqus/Standard
analyses is made in proportion to this value and considering the settings of
cpus_weight_xpl and
cpus.
- cpus_weight_xpl
-
This option controls the allocation of CPUs to
Abaqus/Explicit
analyses. The actual CPU allocation for
Abaqus/Explicit
analyses is made in proportion to this value and considering the settings of
cpus_weight_std and
cpus.
- portpool
-
Set this variable equal to a colon-separated pair of
TCP/UDP port
numbers that represents the start and end value of port numbers to be used by
the co-simulation execution procedure when establishing connections between the
child processes.
Environment File Examples
Example environment files that use some of the previously discussed
parameters are shown below. A sample environment file, named
abaqusinc.env, is included in the
site subdirectory of the release to show the options used
at
SIMULIA.
Linux Environment File:
ask_delete=OFF
# The following parameter causes the scratch files to
# be written to /tmp.
scratch="/tmp"
Windows Environment File:
ask_delete=OFF
# The following parameter causes the scratch files to
# be written to the tmp directory on c:.
scratch="c:/tmp"
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