Adding a Coupling Interface

Each coupled analysis must have at least one coupling interface. Coupling interfaces must be added to the analysis individually.

Note:  You must create separate interfaces to transfer variable and parameter data to or from a participant.

When an interface is created, the CouplingInterface object container becomes available in the data model, with the coupling interface defined beneath it. When adding a coupling interface, you must specify the participant named and region(s) to be associated with each side of the coupling interface.

Interface names must be unique within the coupled analysis. When coupling interfaces are added, they are assigned default names according to the convention <Coupling Interface #>, where "#" indicates the order in which the interfaces were created. For example, if three interfaces are created, they are named CouplingInterface1, CouplingInterface2, and CouplingInterface3.

For each coupling interface object and the regions defined on it, display names are used, when available, and are shown in System Coupling's GUI, Transcript/Log files, and EnSight-formatted results.

Note:  The same rules apply to the creation of interfaces in both the GUI and the CLI. For more information, see Rules for Adding Coupling Interfaces.

For instructions on adding a coupling interface in a given user interface, see:

 

Adding a Coupling Interface in the GUI

To add a coupling interface in the System Coupling GUI, perform the following steps:

  1. Perform one of the following actions:

    • From the Menu Bar, select Setup > Add Interface.

    • In the Outline tree, right-click the Setup branch and select Add Coupling Interface.

    The coupling interface object is added to the data model under the Coupling Interface object container.

    Tip:  Once the Coupling Interface container is available, you can right-click it and select Add to add another interface object.

  2. Under the coupling interface object, click Side.

    Two objects representing the sides of the interface, are defined under Side. The display name of the associated coupling participant is added to the object label.

    The settings for sides One and Two are shown in the Properties pane. At this point, note that the values are empty for both sides. For the data model to be valid, a different participant must be specified for each side.

  3. Set the following values for each side of the interface, as follows:

    1. Select the Coupling Participant to be associated with the selected interface side.

    2. For Region List, specify the region(s) to be used in data transfers involving the selected participant, ensuring that only those regions are selected.

      Note:

      • if a participant contains at least one parameter, then the region list is available but may only be used if all data transfers for the interface use variables for the participant.

      • The drop-down list is populated with all the regions defined for the participant, with selected regions shown at the top.

      • By default, regions are not selected for the participant. Be sure to select at least one region.

      • A filter field at the top of the list allows you to filter the region list by entering characters and the asterisk (*) wild card as criteria. For example:

        • Entering "bus1" might result in the following list of regions: bus1_solid, bus1_shadow_wall, bus1_wall.

        • Entering "bus*solid" might result in the following list of regions: bus1_solid, bus2_solid, bus3_solid.

The coupling participant object is now fully defined.

 

Adding a Coupling Interface in the CLI

In the System Coupling CLI, the AddInterface() command allows you to use internal names to specify the participants and regions to be associated with each interface side.

When specifying regions, the SideOneRegionNames and SideTwoRegionNames arguments accept a list of strings indicating the names of the regions to be included on the interface.

Note:  You cannot specify regions for FMUs. If a parameter is used in any data transfer in an interface, specifying regions is not allowed on the interface side(s) with parameters.

To add a coupling interface, run the command as shown in the example below:

Example 15: Add an interface using internal participant and region names


>>> AddInterface(SideOneParticipantName = 'AEDT-1',
      SideOneRegionNames = 'Volume5',
      SideTwoParticipantName = ['MAPDL-2'], 
      SideTwoRegionNames = ['FVIN_1'])

When the command is run, the coupling interface object is added to the data model under the CouplingInterface object container.