ANSYS Workbench - Batch Mode - Python Scripts

Platform - Tested on Windows 7, 10

ANSYS Version - Tested on 19.5 (2019R3); will most likely work on other versions that are not too old

This is a collection of python scripts I made to make my life easier when dealing with ANSYS Workbench Batch mode. It requres no additional python packages whatsoever. Right now there are 4 modules:

1. WBInterface.py
2. Logger.py
3. ExcelFileReader.py
4. CSVTable.py

Ansys Workbench comes with IronPython 2.7 so to run it from batch mode we only need to write a python script, which will control the flow of the project (run_script.py as an example here) and a .bat file (run.bat as an example here).

• Module WBInterface.py is the main module which contains a class with all the useful workbench commands. I tried to document it as much as I could. This module is absolutely essential to have.

• Module Logger.py contains a class which will create a log file in the project directory and write the flow of the project to it. This module is absolutely essential to have.

• Module ExcelFileReader.py is an adapter class to the COM Excel API. Can be used to read tables from excel files. This module can also be used as a stand-alone with IronPython to read data from Excel. You have to have Excel installed on your machine. Not essential

• Module CSVTable.py lets us easily import csv file to a list/dict. Not essential.

How to use

First of all, this was all made with running it on a remote machine in mind, when you don't have an ability to install additional software or open apps, but have access to a file system. Second of all, in my work I use a specialised hierarchical software which does not support making changes to already existing files, so there was a need to be able to import modules by their modified names (like WBInterface_100.py for example). That's why there's this weird system with exac() commands implemented to input everything correctly. So, the simplest way to use all of this would be:

1. Drop modules WBInterface.py and Logger.py into the same folder where your ANSYS WB archive/project currently resides

2. Drop run_script.py and run.bat there also

3. Configure .bat file for your machine and run it; format of .bat file:

    "<ansysdir>\v<ver>\Framework\bin\Win64\RunWB2.exe" -B -R "run_script.py"
   

That's it! Easy and simple as I intended. The script will automatically try to find .wbpz file and open it or, failing that, it will try to find a .wbpj file. After the project was opened, the script will try to issue a global Update command for all DPs (Design Points) present in the project. Note: You don't need to delete anything from run_script.py since methods won't raise errors if they don't find anything, but it will be logged to a log file.

Additional functionality

You can also input/output WB parameters with multiple DPs which will managed automatically. All you need to do is to create 2 csv files:

• .control or _control.csv
• .input or _input.csv

The first one contain a list of parameters to input and a list of parameters to output. The second one contains values of input parameters with each row being a new DP. Both files support comments (with #). Example of a .control file:

  #Input parameters (type 'no' if no inputs)
  P1,P2,P3
  #Output parameters (type 'no' if no outputs)
  P4,P5

Example of an .input file:

  # p1,p2,p3
  501,50,25
  499,49,24
  500,52,26

This will generate 3 DPs in our project with 3 input and 2 output parameters.

By default in the project directory a log.txt file will be created. Output is written to an output.txt file csv-style and Workbench parametric report is saved to a full_report.txt file. Of course this is all customizable.

You can also use CSVTable.py module or just regular open() to read parameters into a list or dict and use input_by_name() or input_by_DPs() methods of WBInterface.py to set them directly.

Note that I'm not a programmer and I apologize in advance for any inconsistencies/bad practises in my code.