How to do Batch Translation?

VCollab Suite provides a batch utility called VMoveCAEBatch.exe. It is used to generate CAX files without user intervention and helps CAE analysts in automating the CAX generation process. The usage is as follows:

VMoveCAEBatch.exe [option=value] <model_file> [results_file] <CAX_file>

The <model_file> and the <CAX_file> are mandatory arguments to the VMoveCAEBatch.exe. They represent the file paths of the input CAE model file as well as the output CAX file.

Creating CAX file from a CAE file

The following command loads the file viewer_tutorial.odb from abaqus folder and creates a CAX file named viewer_tutorial.CAX in the CAX folder.

VMoveCAEBatch.exe abaqusviewer_tutorial.odb CAXviewer_tutorial.CAX

Translating mesh and results stored in different files to CAX.

Simulation data is stored in the form of model and result files in any CAE software. For example, Fluent creates .cas and .dat files. The .cas file consists of the mesh, boundary conditions and initial conditions where as the .dat file contains the simulation results. For such files, VMoveCAE supports appending results from the result file (.dat in Fluent) to the mesh in the corresponding model file (.cas in Fluent). This feature is available only for certain file types.

The results file path is provided by using the [results_file] optional argument. For successful translation, the [results_file] and the <model_file> should correspond to the same case. The following example describes how to translate mesh and results stored in different files to CAX.

VMoveCAEBatch.exe fluent/ic3d1000.cas fluent/ic3d1000.dat CAX/ic3d1000.CAX

Filtering out Parts, Results and Instances During Batch Translation

There are several options provided by VMoveCAEBatch to filter out parts, results and instances, as given below.

Options:

1. –results=RESULT_LIST : Translates the results listed in RESULT_LIST

Examples:

—results=“Displacement, Stress”

–results=“Temperature, Mach Number”

2. –filter-results=RESULT_LIST: Filters the results specified in RESULT_LIST

Examples:

—filter-results=“Von Mises Stress, Contact Pressure”

–filter-results=“Logarithmic Strain, Reaction Force”

3. –parts=PART_LIST: Translates the parts specified in PART_LIST

Example: –parts=“HINGEBASE, BOLTSURF,_PICKEDSET8”

4. –filter-parts=PART_LIST: Filters the parts specified in PART_LIST

Example: –filter-parts=“ALL ELEMENTS, WarnElemDistorted”

5. –parts-ids=PART_ID_LIST: Translates the parts having ids listed in PART_ID_LIST

Example: –part-ids=1,30-35,41

6. –filter-parts-ids=PART_ID_LIST: Filters the parts having ids listed in PART_ID_LIST

Example: –filter-part-ids=4-8,12

7. –instances=INSTANCE_LIST: Translates the instances listed in INSTANCE_LIST

Examples:

—instances=“1-6, 8-12”

–instances=“1:5-1:8, 2”

8. –filter-instances=INSTANCE_LIST: Filters the instances listed in INSTANCE_LIST

Example: –filter-instances=“:1-:4, 2”

9. –enable-mid-nodes: Enables mid-node translation

10. –disable-mid-nodes: Disables mid-node translation

11. -b <inputs_file_path>: Reads the translation parameters from the inputs_file_path.

Notes:

1. The value of each option is a list whose items are separated by commas.

For example, –results=“Displacement, Stress” will translate results - “Displacement” and “Stress”.

2. It is mandatory to enclose the list in quotes (“”) when the list contains spaces. The quotes can be avoided if there are no spaces.

For example, –results=“Displacement, Stress” and –results=Displacement,Stress are equivalent. However, it is recommended to use quotes.

3. The part ids as well as instances can have a hyphen to specify a range.

For example, –filter-part-ids=”4-8, 12” option results in filtering of parts with ids 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 12.

4. The exact interpretation of Instance depends upon the context in which they are used. They are used in many places to signify the load step or time step number, increment number, vibration, or buckling mode number, etc. For example, for a CFD unsteady simulation, an instance 5 can represent fifth time-step in the simulation. In an ABAQUS odb database the instance 3:2 is used to represent the second frame of the third step.

5. Multiple Hyphens ‘-‘ can be used together to specify the instances that need to be translated or filtered.

For Example:

Option –instances=“1-6, 8-12” specifies that instances one to six and eight to twelve needs to be translated.

Option –instances=“1:5-1:8, 2” specifies that frames five to eight need to be translated for the first step along with all frames for the second step.

Option –filter-instances=“:1-:4, 2” filters out the frames from one to four for all steps. It also filters out all the frames of the second step.

6. If both –results and –filter-results options are specified, the option –filter-results will be ignored.

When both –instances and –filter-instances options are specified, –filter-instances option will be ignored.

When either –parts or –part-ids are specified, –filter-parts and filter-part-ids will be ignored.

7. All the names of the results and parts are not case sensitive.

Supported Results

The names of the results that VMoveCAE batch supports in its arguments are provided in the following table. This table also lists the corresponding data types for each result.

Result Name	Result Type
Specific Heat	Scalar
Density	Scalar
Equivalent Creep Strain	Scalar
Equivalent Elastic Strain	Scalar
Equivalent Plastic Strain	Scalar
Energy	Scalar
Energy Density	Scalar
Total Energy	Scalar
Entropy	Scalar
Failure Index	Scalar
Gap Thickness	Scalar
Enthalpy	Scalar
Heat Generated	Scalar
Heat Flow	Scalar
Heat Flux Component	Scalar
Total Heat Flux	Scalar
Length	Scalar
Kinetic Energy	Scalar
Kinetic Energy Density	Scalar
Kinetic Energy Percent	Scalar
Mach Number	Scalar
Mass	Scalar
Mass Flow	Scalar
Pressure	Scalar
Contact Pressure	Scalar
Reaction Heat Flow	Scalar
Von Mises Stress	Scalar
Torsional Stress	Scalar
Tresca Stress	Scalar
Safety Factor	Scalar
Safety Factor Compression	Scalar
Safety Factor Tension	Scalar
Strain Energy	Scalar
Contact Status	Scalar
Thermal Energy Error	Scalar
Temperature	Scalar
Total Temperature	Scalar
Thickness	Scalar
Principal Strain	Scalar
Strain	Tensor
Creep Strain	Tensor
Elastic Strain	Tensor
Logarithmic Strain	Tensor
Plastic Strain	Tensor
Strain Rate	Tensor
Thermal Strain	Tensor
Stress	Tensor
Acceleration	Vector/SixDOF
Velocity	Vector/SixDOF
Body Force	Vector/SixDOF
Displacement	Vector/SixDOF
Contact Displacement	Vector/SixDOF
Contact Force	Vector/SixDOF
Heat Flux	Vector/SixDOF
Conductive Heat Flux	Vector/SixDOF
Convective Heat Flux	Vector/SixDOF
Heat Gradient	Vector/SixDOF
Mass Flux	Vector/SixDOF
Momentum	Vector/SixDOF
Pressure Gradient	Vector/SixDOF
Reaction Force	Vector/SixDOF
Rotation Angle Vector	Vector/SixDOF
Temperature Gradient	Vector/SixDOF
Contact Traction	Vector/SixDOF
External Applied Force	Vector/SixDOF

Examples:

The following command creates a CAX file with all element sets, but with only displacement and stress results from the CAE file.

VMoveCAEBatch.exe –results=“Displacement, Stress” bracket2.op2 bracket2.CAX

The following command creates a CAX file with all element sets, and all results except for external applied force and reaction force from the CAE file.

VMoveCAEBatch.exe –filter-results=“External Applied Force, Reaction Force” bracket2.op2 bracket2.CAX

The following command creates a CAX file with all element sets except for “All Elements”, and results - stress and displacement from the CAE file. Only results belonging to step one, frames four to eight of step two and frames eleven to fifteen of all steps gets translated.

VMoveCAEBatch.exe –results=“Displacement, Stress” –instances=“1, 2:4-2:8, :11-:15” –filter-parts=“ALL ELEMENTS” viewer_tutorial.odb viewer_tutorial.CAX

VMoveCAE also provides the ability to specify the translation parameters using translation parameter files..

VMoveCAEBatch.exe -b translation_parameters.txt