ANSYS Tutorial: Running Workbench Jobs in Queue

INTRODUCTION

In our ANSYS blog we have presented two articles about ANSYS Remote Solve Manager (RSM). One is about running ANSYS Mechanical APDL with RSM and the other is to set up RSM configuration. Here we would like to present one more article about RSM: running Workbench jobs in queues.

If we collect all models inside one project, Update Project will solve all models in the project in queue. However, if we have models in several different projects, some tricks need to be applied. There are two ways to set up Workbench jobs in queues: by setting environment variable ANSWAIT and by changing RSM settings.

In this article we assume that both the local machine and the remote server are Windows computers.

METHOD 1: By setting environment variable ANSWAIT

Environment variable ANSWAIT allows an ANSYS process to wait (queue) for an available license in the event all licenses are checked out. We can set it in the remote server as showed on the following figure and the path is:

Control Panel -> System -> System Properties -> Advanced -> Environment Variables

On the local machine we prepare the first model as usual. When the preprocessing is finished, we send it to the remote server:

Now we can continue. When we try to open the second model, ANSYS will ask us if we want to save the first model.

We must choose YES otherwise we will lost results of the first model. After completing the preprocessing for the second model, we send it to the same remote server. Since there are no available licenses on the remote server, the second model waits in queue.

We can send as many jobs as you want to the remote server and it will solve them in succession. As solutions of the different models are finished, we can open the solved model and right-click on Solution to Get Results:

We can perform postprocessing as usual on the local machine while the remote server is solving the remaining models.

METHOD 2: By changing RSM settings

Sometimes we do not have access to the remote server to change environment variable. We can still set Workbench jobs in queue by changing RSM settings on local machine. First, open the property panel of the remote server in RSM and set Enabled: False.

Now we can send jobs one by one to the remote server. Do not forget to save the project before you close it. Since the remote server is not allowed to accept the jobs, all jobs are waiting in queue:

After sending all jobs to the remote server, we change the RSM settings back as Enable: True. Now the remote server accepts the jobs and begins to solve them in queue.

Do you want to learn more?

Please contact ANSYS Technical Support at EDR on +4 6757 2120 or technical questions, or ask for a sales representative for questions about licensing.

...or simply send us your contact information and we will get back to you:

You will also find more tutorials in our ANSYS Blog!