To activate the wind coupled analysis feature, it is necessary to create a custom build of Mechanical APDL that includes the wind interface libraries Aeroelastic.lib and WTBFunctions.lib. The library Aeroelastic.lib contains updated user routines to enable a wind coupling analysis in Mechanical APDL. The library WTBFunctions.lib contains interface routines for storing and retrieving data to a shared common area. Since the wind coupling solution involves changes to some of the user routines, it is important that the library Aeroelastic.lib is linked in before all other user libraries so that the wind library versions are picked up by the linker.

The executable of the aeroelastic code should be placed in the same folder as the custom Mechanical APDL executable as both programs need to use WTBFunctions.dll to access the shared data. Alternatively, the folder containing the WTBFunctions.dll could be added to the path (on Windows systems) to enable the aeroelastic code to remain elsewhere.

To link a custom version, run ANS_ADMIN from the utilities folder in the start menu. During the re-linking, the user is asked if the aeroelastic functions are to be included.

For further information and compiler requirements regarding the linking procedure and additional settings for using custom compiled executables, see Compiling and Linking UPFs on Windows Systems in the Programmer's Reference.