Some PrePoMax users may not be used to running analyses outside of this GUI. And it’s sometimes necessary, for example in those cases:
- changes that can’t be handled by the keyword editor (like unsupported element types)
- submitting many analyses with small differences between them
- testing different versions of CalculiX
Here’s how to do it on Windows:
-
Download the package with CalculiX files from http://www.dhondt.de/
-
After unpacking, you can use the solver by just putting its executable file (called ccx_static.exe in the current releases) in a folder containing the input file (e.g. exported from PrePoMax). Then open the command line (PowerShell in new Windows versions won’t work, you have to use the traditional command line) - it can be activated in the current folder by typing cmd in the File Explorer’s address bar. Then type this in the command line:
ccx_static input_file_name -
Simple as that. But if you don’t want to copy the solver executable to a folder with an input file each time, you can add CalculiX to the path system variable. On Windows 10:
- search for Edit the system environment variables
- go to Advanced → Environment Variables… → System variables
- select Path and click Edit, click New and paste the directory of the ccx_static.exe file (without its name, only the path to the folder in which it’s located)
- after confirming, you can use the ccx_static command in any folder without the need to paste the solver executable there
-
It’s usually also necessary to enable parallelization for CalculiX analyses. For this purpose, type
setx OMP_NUM_THREADS "number_of_your_cpus"in the command line or use System Properties —> Advanced —> Environment Variables… as described above (just add a new variable named OMP_NUM_THREADS and its value being the number of cpus instead of modifying the existing Path variable). To check the value of this variable using the command line, type:echo %OMP_NUM_THREADS% -
If you want to use GraphiX (a simple postprocessor native to CalculiX, can help e.g. when some elements not supported by PrePoMax are involved), you will need the cxg_GLUT.exe and glut64.dll files. They are available in the same package as the solver. Use the following command to start postprocessing with this tool:
cgx_glut results_file_name.frdLeft-click somewhere in the empty space outside of the 3D view window to access options. To display results, choose Datasets → frame_number → variable_name then go back to Datasets and select Entity → component_name. To scale the deformed shape, select Viewing → Toggle Add-Displacement and then Toggle CommandLine from tools and type:scal d scale_factor. The rest can be found in the documentation: http://www.dhondt.de/cgx_2.21.pdf