General Requirements
This section describes the general requirements for running a co-simulation with Abaqus.
Before you start, make sure that you have access to an Abaqus installation. For a list of all supported versions of Abaqus, refer to the section External Packages Support of the Simcenter STAR-CCM+ Release Notes.
Licensing
Simcenter STAR-CCM+ and Abaqus are separately licensed products, and licenses are required from both SIMULIA and Siemens Digital Industries Software. In addition, a separate license is required for the SIMULIA Co-Simulation Engine. Information on installing and managing Abaqus licenses can be found under Licensing on the Support page at www.3ds.com/products-services/simulia. Information on installing and managing Simcenter STAR-CCM+ licenses can be found in the Setting Up Licensing section of the Simcenter STAR-CCM+ Installation Guide. Contact your local SIMULIA or Siemens Digital Industries Software support office for assistance in determining licensing requirements.
SIMULIA Co-Simulation Engine
The SIMULIA Co-Simulation Engine is a software component responsible for communication between Abaqus and Simcenter STAR-CCM+. It is distributed and installed with the Abaqus software as dynamic link libraries.
For Simcenter STAR-CCM+ to communicate with Abaqus during the co-simulation, it must have access to these dynamic link libraries.
On Linux, the required library file is libABQSMACseModules.so; on Windows, ABQSMACseModules.dll. The location of the library file depends on your Abaqus installation.
On rare occasions, it is necessary to obtain updated versions of the dynamic link libraries from the SIMULIA download area. Instructions on downloading libraries separately can be found in the document, “SIMULIA Co-Simulation Engine dynamic libraries for fluid-structure interaction analyses using Abaqus and Simcenter STAR-CCM+”. This document is located in the Dassault Systems Knowledge Base at: www.3ds.com/support/knowledge-base.
On installing these libraries, set the environment variable SIMULIA_CSE_LIBPATH to the path where the dynamic link libraries were installed:
- On Windows platforms:
> set SIMULIA_CSE_LIBPATH=<dynamic_libs_dir>\lib - On Unix/Linux platforms:
- For Korn and Bash shells:
% export SIMULIA_CSE_LIBPATH=<dynamic_libs_dir>/lib - For C and Tcsh shells:
% setenv SIMULIA_CSE_LIBPATH <dynamic_libs_dir>/lib
- For Korn and Bash shells:
where dynamic_libs_dir is the path to the directory containing the SIMULIA Co-Simulation Engine dynamic link libraries. Add these settings to your environment or profile.