Products
Abaqus/Standard
Abaqus/Explicit
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 (that is, 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 on 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 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 total number of GPGPUs
to be used in an Abaqus/Standard analysis. In an MPI-based analysis, this parameter
is the number of GPGPUs to be used across all hosts.
- 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 Abaqus Configuration Guide.
- 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 a 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.
mp_host_list is modified to account for the
threads_per_mpi_process value as needed. If the
host list is not defined, Abaqus will run on the local system. When using a supported queuing system, this parameter
is set by the queuing environment.
- 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.
- onCaeStartup
-
Optional function to be executed before Abaqus/CAE begins or any time driverUtils.executeOnCaeStartup is executed in a script. See
Customizing Abaqus/CAE startup for examples of this function.
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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