In some cases, setup changes are desired or are required to avoid failure of the coupled analysis. You may make these changes either by modifying settings in Mechanical or (if working in System Coupling's GUI or CLI) by using a custom restart file.
For instructions, see:
Open Mechanical and save your project before modifying any settings so that, if needed, you can restore the saved project and any deleted restart points.
Make the required changes to the setup, then save the project and close the Mechanical application. The changed settings will be applied for subsequent coupled analyses.
Note: The modification of some settings in Mechanical may invalidate and cause the deletion of all restart points. This deletion of restart points can cause the runtime error which warns of incompatible restart points. For a list of these settings, see Modifications Affecting Restart Points.
Custom restart files are controlled by the Mechanical participant's Execution Control | Additional Restart Input File setting in the System Coupling data model. This setting accepts a Mechanical solver input file (.dat) and is blank by default.
To use a custom restart file, set Additional Restart Input File to the path of the custom restart script you wish to use.
Note: Ensure that the specified restart file is valid. System Coupling does not validate restart files before the solution is restarted.
When a value is entered for this setting, System Coupling inserts a line into Mechanical's restart script, just before the solve command. The added line will include an /input command that references the specified restart file, as in the example below:
/batch
/solu
/gst,on,on
antype,4,rest,10,,continue
/input,myCommands.dat,,,,1
solve
save
finish
exit
The insertion of this line allows you to insert command snippets into the restart script. You may use Mechanical APDL commands that are supported restarting Mechanical in a coupled analysis — for example, you may use the TIMINT command to control time integration for Mechanical's restart.
System Coupling will use the custom script as the input for the restarted run, issuing the inserted command snippets before restarting the solution.