Running Abaqus on Servers

SEE TDX https://service.purdue.edu/TDClient/32/Purdue/KB/ArticleDet?ID=1825

This Abaqus tutorial is a good place to start regarding the use of Abaqus. Once you understand how to create an input file you can do the following to have the job run on the server.

Licensing

Abaqus is set up to run on any Engineering Purdue IT system. However, you must tell it what kind of license to use. It defaults to the research license. How to set the license is detailed at the bottom of this document.

Running jobs on a server

1. ssh into a server.
2. Start a screen session:
   1. something like screen -S abaqus-solve-01
3. You will need an Abaqus input file.
4. Load the Abaqus module: module load Abaqus
   1. Overview of lmod
5. Run your job
   • Decide where you want to run the job. For this example, I will have it in my home directory (or N: drive on Windows)
   • run the job: abaqus job=input_file_name
6. Once the job is running, you can do Ctrl-A-D to detach from the session
7. Check on it periodically to see if it is done:
   1. ssh into the server
   2. reattach to the screen session: screen -r or screen -r name-you-gave-the-session
   3. If it's done, type exit to end your session
   4. Or Ctrl-A-D to detach and check on it later

Using the GUI

Here's how to access Abaqus with a graphical user interface (GUI). Please note that performance might be slow unless you have a fast Internet connection.

7. Start an X server (such as VcXsrv or Cygwin; you would have to download and install one of these packages on a "self-supported" system).

8. SSH into a host using an application like SecureCRT. (If you are using a "self-supported" or personally-owned computer, you may download SecureCRT.)

9. Start the GUI by typing this command:

abaqus cae -mesa

This should get around the lack of proper video drivers.

Documentation server

The vendor provides a website with documentation for recent versions of Abaqus (under the versions labeled as "SIMULIA"):

https://help.3ds.com