How can I run ANSYS from MATLAB？

Hi,

Would you tell me about the cause and solution for stooping of ANSYS run from MATLAB?

I want to run ANSYS from MATLAB, and I tried "Shell Escape Function" (I wrote the DOS comand after "!").

However ANSYS stopped running at the stage of the solution .

It only indicates ANSYS stopped working.

I think DOS command is not wrong, because it run from CMD.exe, and it runs without problems partway.

I suspect the cause is stack overflow, but I do not know how to identify that.

My PC environment is

Windows 7　Enterprise Intel Core i7 970 16.0GB

Truly yours.

[Akash Kunjalwar]

I'm a an undergraduate mechanical engineering student from Osmania University, India. We have to write a code based on calculus in MATLAB and run it in ANSYS APDL as our final project for the course. Please provide the detailed procedure for the same.

Answer 1

[Sarah Palfreyman]

See ANSYS for the MATLAB AAS Toolbox interface.

http://www.ansys-blog.com/how-to-make-matlab-apps-for-ansys/

[Zhale Davo]

hi sarah

this link went to ansys homepage and nothing else. how can we as students download the matlab aas toolbox? because for downloading it we need to log in on ansys customer portal and if we are using the student version of ansys we do not have access to that toolbox. so how should we run ansys from matlab? is there any other way than the aas toolbox?

[SorMun]

The toolbox is now availabe for download from Mathworks File Exchange at

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/155122-ansys_aas-1-1-13

Thank you

Sorin

Answer 2

[Nicolai Bloch]

Hi All

I also had this issue receiving a error return code -1073741571 (alias c00000fd), which is a Windows error code indicating a stack overflow. Since this is really a system level error, ANSYS doesn't produce any error messages in its own log/error file. Support told me that the problem is related to a particular piece of 3rd party software (OpenMP) used by MATLAB. As of 2014b, when running system commands, the stack size is limited to 512k through an environment variable called KMP_STACKSIZE. It is possible to verify the existence and value of this environment variable by issuing the following command listing all the variables (in Windows):

>>System('SET')

    (produces a list of all environment variables currently set...)

For ANSYS to be able to run, you need to increase the stack size before calling the ANSYS executable. You can do this by wrapping the ANSYS call in a batch script or you can do the following:

>>System('SET KMP_STACKSIZE=2048k & "C:\path_to_ansys\ansys[version].exe" [input arguments..]')

I haven't played around with the stack size enough to find a critical value (may also be mesh size/solver dependent). At least the above setting worked for me.

[Arpad Rozsas]

Thank you very much! You saved me from going crazy.

[Nikolay Perepelkin]

Thanks! Worked for me as well. (Matlab R2016a + ANSYS 18.0)

[Viktor]

Thank you. Worked for me also in Matlab 2017a + ANSYS 18.1.

[Newsam Niu]

Awesome! It works with MATLAB R2016a + ANSYS17.1 as well.

[MUJAHID UMAR]

Totally just worked for me. Matlab R2016b and Ansys 15.

[Changhui Cui]

Fantastic, it worked for me. Thank you!

[Mohamed Alkalla]

Hi Nicolai,

I've subscribed especially to be able to write this comment thanking you for your great help. I've tried several ways along many days but this command totally solved the problem.

Many thanks again.

Mohamed Alkalla

[Soroush Zamanian]

Thank you for the video and replying to comments. My concern is about Part 1. I have an ansys apdl code with a large number of nodes and elements. The MATLAB remains on Pause for a while when the ansys gets into the solution, then terminated. I tried the code you suggested as below:

!SET KMP_STACKSIZE=15000M & "C:\Program Files\ANSYS Inc\v161\ansys\bin\winx64\ANSYS161.exe" -b -i Run_1_Test.mac -o Run_1_Test_out.txt

But still having the same issue, while only 50% my computer RAM is in use. I appreciate your help in advance.

[Jiantao Liu]

Thank you so much, buddy, it is hard to find the sulution for this.

It fixed my problem.

Matlab 2018b + ANSYS R19

"It always return a status or ans =-1.0737e+009"

[Davide Clerici]

Worked even for me. Ansys 19.0+MATLAB 2020A. Thank you!!!

Answer 3

[Yusuke]

Thank you for your answer.

I will try if I can not find any other solutions.

However I want to know how to run ANSYS by DOS command and solutions for error.

Because, my program is almost written.

Do you have any other ideas?

Your continued support will be greatly appreciated.

Answer 4

[Ola]

Hi, i have the exact same problem as you Yusuke. Ansys stops working just as it's about to calculate the solution. The odd thing is that it works perfectly fine if i run my batch file outside of matlab. Sadly I have not yet found the solution for this problem, but was hoping that you could replay the answer if or when you find it. If not, then i'll try to post my solution if i find one, good luck.

[Yusuke]

Hi, thank you for getting touch with me.

I have already cleared my problem.

The cause of my problem was using matlab2014b.

If I use matlab2014a, I can run ANSYS from matlab.

I don't know the exact reason for this problem, however I think matlab2014b has some bugs.

So please try to use matlab 2014a.

I hope this helps you.

[Ola]

Ah, thank you man! This really saved me, running it from 2014a worked for me aswell. Thanks for the quick reply :)

Answer 5

[Georg]

I can confirm this behavior when running Matlab 2014b and 2015a with any verison of ANSYS. At the same time it works perfectly with Matlab 2013a. That really annoying. I tried two different ways of initiating the Ansys execution:

cmd = sprintf(['"' ansys_path '"' ...
                ' -b' ...
                ' -j ' jobname ...
                ' -i "' skriptFileName '.inp"' ...
                ' -o "' outputFilename '.txt"' ...
                ]);

then:

[o, txt] = system(cmd, '-echo')

... just like:

rt = java.lang.Runtime.getRuntime()
p = rt.exec(cmd)
p.waitFor()

crashes with something I think is a stack overflow.

When running the java-code from e.g. Netbeans (jdk 1.8) it works perfectly. Also the execution from the command prompt works perfectly. So I assume it's definetly a Matlab related problem.

[Georg]

FYI:

Problemsignatur:
  Problemereignisname:  APPCRASH
  Anwendungsname:  ANSYS.exe
  Anwendungsversion:  16.0.0.0
  Anwendungszeitstempel:  54808089
  Fehlermodulname:  ANSYS.exe
  Fehlermodulversion:  16.0.0.0
  Fehlermodulzeitstempel:  54808089
  Ausnahmecode:  c00000fd
  Ausnahmeoffset:  0000000007dbfe27
  Betriebsystemversion:  6.1.7601.2.1.0.256.4
  Gebietsschema-ID:  2055
  Zusatzinformation 1:  c516
  Zusatzinformation 2:  c516bfdf78867a45b65f55f9a72f0328
  Zusatzinformation 3:  2abc
  Zusatzinformation 4:  2abc3a60b12a51f515354adc2ddacd65

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[Nicolai Bloch]

As per my original post (above), but using your code instead, this should do the trick:

cmd = sprintf(['SET KMP_STACKSIZE=2048k & "' ansys_path '"' ...
                ' -b' ...
                ' -j ' jobname ...
                ' -i "' skriptFileName '.inp"' ...
                ' -o "' outputFilename '.txt"' ...
                ]);

[o, txt] = system(cmd, '-echo');

Answer 6

[Seth]

Thank you - this thread was a big help to me several times (I forgot about the problem and rediscovered it a few times) ;-)

Answer 7

[Akshay Kumar]

Check this out, might be helpful. https://youtu.be/sE3NkH1m24w using MATLAB to run (ANSYS) APDL macro code