During a running optimization process ProTOp provides interactive
Interactive monitoring is quite useful during task preparation where various load cases are still evaluated whether they are needed or not.
Load case management, on the other hand, might be of vital importance in boosting optimization process performance. If the number of load cases is relatively small, manual suppressing of individual load cases might be an attractive option. But if one has to deal with a large number of load cases, automatic management might be of vital importance to assure acceptable execution times.
The data grid control lists all load cases engaged in the current optimization process. For each load case the following data is provided.
Skip
Analysis type: all
This is the skip counter showing how many more cycles the corresponding load case will be skipped before it is computed again to check for its impact factor. This parameter is significant only under automatic load cases management.
ImpFac
Analysis type: all
This is the impact factor indicating the relative importance of its corresponding load case. It is computed as a relative share of finite element nodes which have their material function level defined by the corresponding load case. A value of zero means that the corresponding load case does not define the material function level of any nodes.
SEner
Analysis type: stress
This is the strain energy of the structure under the corresponding load case.
RBStress
Analysis type: stress
This is the reference boundary stress measure of the structure under the corresponding load case.
MaxDisp
Analysis type: stress
This is the maximal absolute nodal displacement of the structure under the corresponding load case.
EigFrq
Analysis type: eigenfrequency
This is the lowest eigenfrequency of the structure.
Rx
Analysis type: stress
This is the x-component of the resulting load force imposed to the structure under the corresponding load case.
Ry
Analysis type: stress
This is the y-component of the resulting load force imposed to the structure under the corresponding load case.
Rz
Analysis type: stress
This is the z-component of the resulting load force imposed to the structure under the corresponding load case.
Automatic management is based on the load case impact factor which is a measure of relative importance of a particular load case. Roughly, the impact factor can be interpreted as the relative design share that is determined by the corresponding load case; for example, an impact factor value of 0.3 means that the corresponding load case defines about 30% of the current design.
According to this interpretation, a load case with ZERO impact factor has no influence on the current design and can be at least temporarily eliminated from the list of active load cases. If there are only a few load cases, this can be done manually, but if their number is high, automatic management becomes indispensable.
If automatic management is enabled, the following data has to be provided.
Low impact factor threshold
Range: [0.0, 1.0]
Defines the absolute suppress threshold value; a load case with its impact factor being less or equal to this threshold will be suppressed for a predefined number of cycles. Typically, this value should be zero, which suppresses load cases with no influence on current design. However, positive values might be helpful at early optimization stages, if performance is critical.
Cycles to skip before recheck
Range: [0, ~]
Defines the number of cycles to run before a suppressed load case will be checked again for its impact factor. Note that even if a load case exhibits a zero impact factor at some early optimization stage, this might change in the later optimization stages. So, each suppressed load case should be checked occasionally for its impact factor.
NOTE. Once the optimization process converges, the automatic management option is switched off automatically and additional cycles are run until the convergence is reached without skipping any load cases.