The installer provides all of the software required to use the Autodesk Simulation Mechanical software except for MPICH2.(Message Passing Interface). MPICH2 is used for distributed computing on a Windows cluster using the MUMPS sparse solver. MPICH2 needs to be installed on all machines in the cluster. Distributed computing is available for the following analysis types:
- Static Stress with Linear Material Models
- Mechanical Event Simulation (MES) with Linear or Nonlinear Material Models
- Static Stress with Nonlinear Material Models
- MES Riks Analysis
Windows Operating System
- Download the current, stable release of the MPICH2 Platform utilities from the MPICH Downloads page.
- Consult the MPICH Documentation page for installer and user guides, release notes, and more.
- Install the MPICH2 software according to the instructions provided in the installer and on the documentation web site. Or, if MPICH2 has been installed to one computer and needs to be set up on additional computers, the following shortcut method can be used:
- Copy MPICH2 utilities smpd.exe and mpiexec.exe from the computer with the full installation to a folder on the additional computer. For convenience of these instructions, place the copies in a path like C:\MPICH2\bin.
- Make sure the bin folder C:\MPICH2\bin is in the PATH environment variable.
- Set a system environment variable ALGOR_MPICH equal to the location where MPICH2 was installed. For example, ALGOR_MPICH=C:\MPICH2.
- This step only needs to be done once on each computer. Before attempting to run the analysis, run smpd.exe - install. (smpd.exe is located in the MPICH2\bin folder where ever it was installed.) This can be done with the Windows Start: Run command, or from a command window set to the bin folder.
- This step only needs to be done once on each computer. Before attempting to run the analysis, run mpiexec.exe - register (mpiexec.exe is located in the MPICH2\bin folder where the MPICH2 software was installed) and then type in the username and password according the screen prompt. This can be done with the Windows Start: Run command, or from a command window set to the bin folder.
- If a firewall is installed and turned on, such as the one that comes with Windows XP, it may block all TCP ports by default which causes the MPICH2 application to fail. To solve this problem, use one of these methods:
- Turn off the firewall completely.
- Limiting MPICH2 applications to a range of TCP ports by using the MPICH_PORT_RANGE environment variable and setting the firewall to allow the same range of ports.
- Put MPICH2 applications in the exceptions of the Windows firewall. The applications are ssap11ld.exe, srun11.exe and frun04.exe from Autodesk Simulation, and smpd.exe and mpiexec.exe for MPICH2.
Note: MPICH2 will not operate when using a substitute drive (SUBST). Therefore, analysis types that utilize MPICH2 will not work with models stored on a substitute drive.