Run Options

Overrides the PARAM, AMLS setting in the input file.

(Example: optistruct infile.fem -amls yes)

OptiStruct and AMLS can be run with different allocations of processors. For example, OptiStruct can be run with 1 processor and AMLS with 4 processors in the same run.

Only valid with -amls run option or when PARAM, AMLS is set to YES.

Overrides the PARAM, AMLSNCPU setting in the input file.

Default = 1

(Example: optistruct infile.fem -amls yes -amlsncpu 4)

<Real>

YES

Activates AMSES for the structural model.

BOTH

Activates AMSES for both the structure and fluid parts of the model.

The -analysis run option will have no effect, if the CHECK entry is present in the control section.

Cannot be used with -check or -restart.

(Example: optistruct infile.fem -analysis)

If an OptiStruct optimization model has DOPTPRM, DESMAX, 0, the number of license units checked out is the same as the checkout for an OptiStruct analysis job.

The memory needed is automatically allocated.

Cannot be used with -analysis, -optskip or -restart.

(Example: optistruct infile.fem -check)

NO

Element quality checks are not performed, but mathematical validity checks are performed.

YES (Default)

Or, if no argument is given, the geometric quality of each element is checked. Any violation of the error limits is counted as a fatal error and the run will stop. Any violation of warning limits is non-fatal. Error or warning messages are printed for elements violating the limits along with the offending property values. The amount of output is limited to the first 3 occurrences for each individual case, plus a summary table of all errors.

FULL

The same checks are performed as for YES, but the error or warning messages are printed for all of the elements violating the error or warning limits.

(Example: optistruct infile.fem -checkel full )

(Example: optistruct infile.fem -checkel)

This run option must be used when Altair Compose is invoked during an OptiStruct run, in case of an external response (DRESP3).

(Example: optistruct_infile.fem –compose {compose_installation_path})

For further information, refer to External Responses using Altair Compose.

Reduces out matching material and property definitions.

Property definitions referencing deleted material definitions are updated with the retained matching material definition (reduction of property definition occurs after this process).

Element definitions referencing deleted property definitions are updated with the retained matching property definition. The resulting Bulk Data file will be written to a file named <filename>.echo.

It is assumed that there is no optimization, nonlinear or thermal-material data in the Bulk Data. If such data are present in the input file, the resulting file (<filename>.echo) may not be valid.

The -compress run option cannot be used in combination with any other option as OptiStruct terminates the run after the .echo file is generated.

(Example: optistruct infile.fem -compress)

Refer to Compression Run for more information.

in

in-core solution is forced

out

out-of-core solution is forced

min

Minimum core solution is forced

The solver assigns the appropriate memory required. If there is not enough memory available, OptiStruct will error out. Overwrites the -len option.

(Example: optistruct infile.fem -core in)

Examples:

optistruct infile.fem –cores auto

optistruct infile.fem –cores 12

(Example: optistruct infile.fem -ncpu 2)

DDM is activated by default when any MPI run is requested by specifying -np (in addition, MPI process grouping via -ddmngrps AUTO or PARAM,DDMNGRPS,AUTO is also automatically activated by default for any MPI run). MMO or FSO MPI runs are only active if explicitly identified via -mmo or -fso. Otherwise, for any MPI run with -np, DDM is activated by default.

< Integer ≥1, MAX, MIN, AUTO, or -1>

Integer ≥1

Identifies the number of groups into which the specified MPI processes (-np) are divided. This parameter is supported for DDM Level 1 parallelization via:

• Task-based DDM runs
• Global Search Option (DGLOBAL)

AUTO or -1 (Default)

This option is only supported for the Task-based DDM parallelization solution (first option mentioned above). It will heuristically determine the number of groups that are required for the specified model.

MAX

Automatically enforces the maximum number of groups (which is equivalent to a pure Level 1 DDM task-based parallelization run).

MIN

Automatically enforces the minimum number of groups (which is equivalent to a purely geometric partition based parallelization (Level 2 DDM) run)

Refer to DDM Level 1 – Task-based parallelization in Domain Decomposition Method (DDM).

Overrides the PARAM,FFRS setting in the input file.

(Example: optistruct infile.fem –ffrs yes)

OptiStruct and FastFRS can be run with different allocations of processors. For example, OptiStruct can be run with 1 processor and FastFRS with 4 processors in the same run.

Valid only when the –ffrs run option or PARAM, FFRS is set to YES.

Overrides the PARAM, FFRSNCPU setting in the input file.

Default: Number of processors used by OptiStruct.

(Example: optistruct infile.fem –ffrs yes –ffrsncpu 4)

<Real>

Usually, during submission of the job to a remote server or queuing system, filenames specified in the input deck cannot be used (for example, when they contain Windows-specific names, and the remote server is using Linux). This option is also used when the input file consists of INCLUDE files with identical names (in different locations).

The contents of <filename> specify a dictionary of filenames (a list of filename pairs, one filename per line). The order of pairs in the file is irrelevant. Before opening any input file OptiStruct will check this map, and instead of opening the file as defined by the input deck, it will open the corresponding filename in the dictionary.

Usage of -filemap assures that all messages produced by OptiStruct will refer to the original setup (for example, show Windows paths, even when job runs on Linux).

When -asp option is also defined, -filemap targets must specify filenames only (without path). -filemap is recommended to be used with -asp option.

The contents of <filename> are split in two groups.

The first group refers to the names used on include statements. For these entries, the first name in a pair must be a single asterisk and a number (n). This indicates a map to the n^th file listed by -inventory or in the Optimization Summary section of the .out file. Any potential INCLUDE files used during ASSIGN, UPDATE also belong to this group.

The second group is the list of other names. The first name is compared verbatim to the content of the one used on ASSIGN, RESTART, and similar cards).

*2  
 /scratch/file_155.fem 
restart.sh 
 /scratch/folder/restart.txt

The use of this filemap will result in substituting /scratch/file_155.fem for the second INCLUDE file and file /scratch/folder/restart.txt will be substituted instead of any file referenced as 'restart.sh' with no path (presumably on the RESTART card).

See Comment 5

To avoid over specifying the memory when using this option, it is suggested first to run OptiStruct with the -check option and use the results of that run to properly define the memory size for the -fixlen option.

This option allows, on certain platforms, to avoid memory fragmentation and allocate more memory than is possible with dynamic memory allocation.

Overwritten by -len and -core options.

(Example: optistruct infile.fem - fixlen 500)

Default = 1

When -np is not specified, each line in the file (<filename>) will represent one MPI process on the corresponding host.

Examples:

Let hostfile.txt be the file that contains the list of hosts, with the following contents.

host1

host2

optistruct infile.fem -np 8 -hostfile hostfile.txt

In this example, 4 MPI processes will be used for each host (host1 and host2).

Example 2: -np is not specified.

optistruct infile.fem -hostfile hostfile.txt

When this option is used, the number of MPI processes (-np) must also be specified.

(Example:optistruct infile.fem -np 4 -hosts host1,host2)

All folders defined on this option are used to search for any include file defined in the input deck.

If the additional option -localfilesonly is used, then all paths are stripped from INCLUDE cards and include files are searched only in these locations.

If this option is used, then incpath from .cfg file has no effect.

When <filename> on incpath is a relative path, it is always relative to the run folder (the location where the job is executed).

The <path> is used when the search for included file fails for all standard locations.

• When filename defined on INCLUDE card represents a file with a relative path (or has no path) then that file is searched relative to each incpath defined.
• When this fails, then the filename defined on INCLUDE is stripped from the path and searched in each folder defined by each incpath.
• Search is stopped after the first matching file is found, and no warning is issued if more than one file could match the rules above; therefore, multiple incpath folders should be used with caution.

Example: -incpath {C:/incfolder}

<results_catalog>
   <input   name="file1.fem"/>
   <input   name="SUBDIR1/inc_11.fem"/>
   <data    name="../temp-tests/testnp100/cms_cbn_testinrel.h3d"/>
</results_catalog>

In this file, the OptiStruct input files are referenced by ‘input’ and all other files listed in ASSIGN or RESTART are referenced by ‘data'.

-inventory stops OptiStruct immediately after it reads all input files, it may not detect any of the errors in the input deck. If both -inventory and -check are present, then full checkrun is also performed.

In the presence of -filemap, the content of .flst file will show the actual location of the file, while all other outputs from the solver will hide the file mapping.

In part-instance mode, it is expected that the same file may be read multiple times, and this will result in the same line repeated multiple times. This is consistent with the .flst file created with -inventory option, as it will require multiple lines to remap such a file.

See Comment 5

When different algorithms can be chosen, the solver will try to use the fastest algorithm which can run within the specified amount of memory. If no such algorithm is available, the algorithm with minimum memory requirement will be used. For example, the sparse linear solver, which can run in-core, out-of-core or min-core will be selected. The –core option will override the –len option. The default for –len is 8000MB, this means that all except for very small models, OptiStruct will use only the minimum memory needed to run the job. If –len value is larger than the amount of available physical RAM, it may cause excessive swapping during computations, and significantly slow down the solution process.

Default = 8000 MB.

(Example: optistruct infile.fem –len 32)

FEA

FE analysis only (OptiStructFEA).

OPT

Optimization (OptiStruct or OptiStructMulti).

The solver checks out a license of the specified type before reading the input data. Once the input data is read, the solver verifies that the requested license is of the correct type. If this is not the case, OptiStruct will terminate with an error.

No default

(Example: OptiStruct infile.fem -lic FEA)

See Comment 5

OptiStruct will not exceed this limit.

No default

(Example: optistruct infile.fem –maxlen 9000)

See Comment 5

This is the minimum amount of memory allocated in the dynamic memory allocation process and OptiStruct will not go below this limit.

Default = 10% of -len

(Example: optistruct infile123.fem –minlen 200)

pl (IBM Platform-MPI (formerly HP-MPI)),

ms (MS-MPI),

Specify the Message Passing Interface (MPI) type for use MPI-based SPMD runs on supported platforms.

(Example: optistruct infile.fem –mpi –np 4 –mpipath /apps/hpmpi/bin)

Default = 1. Maximum = 8

(Example: optistruct infile.fem –ddm –np 4)

Cannot be used with –check or –restart.

(Example: optistruct infile.fem -optskip)

(Example: optistruct infile.fem -out)

(Example: optistruct infile.fem -outfile results; here OptiStruct will output results.out, etc.)

Refer to Design Optimization in the User Guide for more information.

See Comment 5

The upper limit of RAMDISK for Compute Console (ACC) or OptiStruct script is 10,000,000 (10 TB).

(Example: optistruct infile.fem –ramdisk 800)

For a more detailed description, see the RAMDISK setting on SYSSETTING I/O Options Entry.

Inclusion of this option on a restart run will cause the last iteration to be reanalyzed without penalization.

If the "density threshold" given is less than the value of MINDENS (default = 0.01) used in the optimization, all elements will be assigned the densities they had during the final iteration of the optimization. As there is no penalization, stiffness will now be proportional to density.

If the "density threshold" given is greater than the value of MINDENS, those elements whose density is less than the given value will have density equal to MINDENS, all others will have a density of 1.0.

Example: optistruct infile.fem -restart -reanal 0.3)

Cannot be used with –check, -analysis or –optskip.

(Example: optistruct infile.fem -restart); here OptiStruct looks for the restart file infile.sh.

(Example: optistruct infile.fem –restart C:\oldrun\old_infile.sh); here OptiStruct looks for the restart file old_infile.sh.

(Example: optistruct infile.fem –mpi –rnp 4)

(Example: optistruct infile.fem -rnt 2)

Not applicable when -maxlen is used.

(Example: optistruct infile.fem –rsf 1.2)

(Example: optistruct infile.fem –len 32 –rsf 1.2)

(Example: optistruct infile.fem –core out –rsf 1.2)

path

Provide the path to the directory for scratch file storage.

filesize=n

Defines the maximum file size (in GB) that may be written to that location.

slow=1

Indicates a network drive.

(Example: optistruct infile.fem –scr filesize=2,slow=1,/network_dir/tmp)

Multiple scratch directories may be defined through repeated instances of –tmpdir or –scr.

(Example: optistruct infile.fem –tmpdir C:\tmp –tmpdir filesize=2,slow=1,Z:\network_drive\tmp)

This overwrites the environment variableOS_TMP_DIR, and the TMPDIR definition in the I/O Options Entry section of the input deck.

For a more detailed description, see the TMPDIR I/O Options Entry.

(Example: optistruct infile.fem –scrfmode buffered, stripe – tmpdir C:\tmp)

For a description of the arguments, see the SCRFMODE setting on SYSSETTING I/O Options Entry.

(Example: optistruct infile.fem –mpi –np 4 –mpipath /apps/hpmpi/bin -testmpi)