In the last articles, I wrote a lot about open-source FEA and especially about Salome-Meca 2017, which is a powerful open-source FEA code used a lot in France and especially in the nuclear industry.
Now the first tutorial is finally ready... and I decided to show you how to analyse a simple plate to help you to familiarise yourself with the interface and the commands!
If you don't know how to install the software (or linux), check out my previous articles on this topic here.
Let me know if you have some projects you're like to simulate in the comments, it will give me ideas for the next videos!
--Cyprien
More...
Tatianne Iamin Kotinda says
Hi,
Thanks a lot for sharing your knowledge! I’m totally new in using Salome-Meca, and I am interested in running modal analysis (finding natural frequencies and mode-shapes). If you have any example on that subject I would appreciate it. Thank you once more.
Roger Moortgat says
Here you find an example of modal analysis:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcHlL0XJvVQ&t=1s
Roger
Francisco Ramirez says
Hello my friend!
First, thank you so much. This blog is excellent!
However, I have a problem runing the example that you show. I follow the instructions exactly as you show, but when I try to run the model, the following error appers:
AsterStudy
Unexpected error
Type: UnicodeDecodeError
Value: (‘ascii’, ‘mi\xc3\xa9-08-182816’, 2, 3, ‘ordinal not in range(128)’)
Any advice?
Best!
Francisco
Cyprien says
Hi Francisco,
Looks like a problem due to the language of your operating system… Aster is trying to read the text file as Unicode, but it’s not (Probably a bug on their side)
Did you setup your linux environment as a non-english environment on virtual box? If yes, you can always try to reinstall your virtual box and set it in english.
This should be corrected by Code Aster I think, did you tried to post that on their forum?
Florian Thiery says
Try to run salome using the english language from the terminal:
$ cd appli_V2017.0.2
$ LANG=’en_EN.utf8′ ./salome
I found it in the code aster forum:
https://www.code-aster.org/forum2/viewtopic.php?id=22837
Hope it can help,
Florian
Francisco Ramirez says
Thanks Cyprien and Florian for your advices,
I change the language of my Ubuntu system and now the error disappear; however, a new error appears:
In the Salome-meca appear the following message:
“Run case “RunCase_1” calculations process started
Starting “RunCase_1:LinearStatic”…
Stage “RunCase_1:LinearStatic” start calculation (jobid=3)
Stage “RunCase_1:LinearStatic” calculation failed. Interruption”
and in the terminal running the command $ sudo LANG=’en_US.utf8′ ./salome appears the following:
”
/tmp/salome_localres_workdir_root/root-un-pc-Wed-15-175442.348/runCommand_launcher_script_Wed_Nov_15_17_54_42_2017_launch_job: 3: ulimit: error setting limit (Invalid argument)
/bin/cp: cannot stat ‘/tmp/salome_localres_workdir_root/root-un-pc-Wed-15-175442.348/Mesh_1’: No such file or directory
/bin/cp: cannot stat ‘/tmp/salome_localres_workdir_root/root-un-pc-Wed-15-175442.348/base-stage1’: No such file or directory
”
I don’t know if the problem is with my hdf file, can you share a working file?
Thanks a lot for your help!
Francisco
Florian says
Hi Francisco,
I finally managed to make it work on my computer, so maybe I can share exactly what I did to make it work. So I did exactly as Cyprien did excepted these two things:
– I launch Salome using :$ LANG=’en_EN.utf8′ ./salome , because of the unicode error as mentioned in my previous post. I do NOT use the en_US because it does not work on my computer, i get the same problem with unicode. and do NOT use root either, it is not recommend as i could see on aster forum
– After that, I still got an error when i run the simulation, and it said somewhere in the long .log file that: libopenblas.so.0: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory. Since this library was missing, i checked if someone else at the same problem on code aster, and they did https://www.code-aster.org/forum2/viewtopic.php?id=23019
So I install the library using:
$ sudo apt-get install libopenblas-dev
And then it finally worked after a few days struggling. So to summarize:
– Do as Cyprien for the install
– Install missing library: $ sudo apt-get install libopenblas-dev
– Run using: $ LANG=’en_EN.utf8′ ./salome (not the US version, and not as root)
Try to see what mistake you get in the log fil, maybe you have the same,
Best regards,
Florian
Cyprien says
Thanks for sharing your experience Florian, I am sure this will be useful for more people trying to install Code Aster like you.
Francisco Ramirez says
Thank you so much Cyprien. Now I can run Salomé-Meca without any problem.
Florian says
Hi Cyprien,
I think it is great that you try to motivate people into using Code Aster, it is a nice tool to use for FEM. I hope my comments can help a few scientists, I don’t want them to struggle as I did and be discouraged!
I am currently trying the rotordynamics capabilities of Code Aster, so if you plan to do a similar example in the future, I am willing to help :)
Amicalement,
Florian
Cyprien says
Thanks Florian, I just answered to you by email.
Harry says
Hi Cyprien, thanks very much for the clear material on Salome Meca 2017. I installed the windows version and followed your plate example. It all works very nicely until I get to the point of running Stage 1. Then I get a message that the result file cannot be found in the path that I specified under “Set Output Results”. I tried a few times with different file names and different paths, but always get the same result. When I look in the path then indeed there is no such “.med” file. Neither is it in any other path on my hard disk. Did you ever come across this problem and would you have any tips on how to resolve this? Thanks, Harry
Cyprien says
Hi Harry, In the linux version, what you have to do is to create this .med file as a text file with the extension “.med” and then enter the path to this file in the output results window.
Additionally and to be frank with you, I had also a problem with the windows install at this point and I went back using the linux version…I think that there is a problem with this windows install on non-english windows systems. As I am not the developper, I can’t do much about it unfortunately…
Harry says
Thanks Cyprien, I will try a few things and report back if I find a solution.
Harry says
Hi Cyprien, I found the issue and -as promised- I report back here. The problem was that I had used a space in the name of the Face Groupings for the boundary conditions, e.g. “Load Face”, instead of “Load_Face”. This must have given a run error with as a consequence that the result file could not been written, leading to the missing file error message. Anyway, I am speculating here. Fact is that re-naming the Face Groupings fixed the original issue. I did have few other issues along the way (causing me to reinstall Salome Meca 2017 for Windows), but in the end I did get ParaViS to display the results of your video with the Windows version. Thanks again !
Cyprien says
Thanks Harry for sharing your feedback. I am sure that this will be useful for others who have the same problem than you!
Emre says
Hi Cyprien,
First of all, I am a mechanical engineer for more than 15 years but now I understood the importance of opensource software and now I am trying to find my way in Salome-meca. and your blog is excellent for it.
I was trying to replicate your example myself in Salome-meca 2019.0.3 installed in Ubuntu 20.04 but when I came to AsterStudy module and then try to read the mesh, I cannot see the “Apply”, “Close” and “OK” buttons as you have them. This prevents me continuing the process as it sees it uncompleted. You have any idea why this might be happening? I am stuck there because of this.
Cyprien says
I believe Salome hasn’t been tested on Ubuntu 20.04 yet… I would advise you to use 18.04 in the meantime.
Feel free to report that as a bug on the Salome Forum.
You could also try changing the resolution of your screen to see if it changes something.
pegaso says
Hi Cyprien,
I am an engineer working on the wind industry and would be very much looking forward to see an example of a blade and a tower modeled and solved in Salome Meca, just to give you some idea from my perspective. Thanks.
P.S. By the way I learned that the problem with the buttons was about screen resolution. You need to click F11 back and forth to see some buttons which you normally do not see.
Cyprien says
Ok, Great! Good to see it’s already solved
Bibin John says
Hi Cyprien,
Can you kindly guide me, how to add a spring to a rectangular beam in Salome Meca.
Peter Timotius says
Hi Cyprien,
Thank you very much for your efforts in teaching open source simulation software. I would like to ask 2 questions:
1. In CFD analysis I often hear finite volume method. I am still newbie in this field. So in short, what is the main difference between FVM and finite element method?
2. FE analysis has been widely used in investigating bone implant stability, where the implant was attached on the bone surface with drilling some screws. However, I haven’t understood well about contact conditions between the models. Do you think the bone model should firstly be designed with already-drilled screw hole before being assembled with the screw? Or do you think we can just use the unedited bone model (which is without prepared screw drill hole) and combine it with the screw?
Thank you very much for your kind attention. Sorry for my bad English.
Cyprien says
Hi Peter,
So I wrote an article about the difference between FEM and FDM (but not FEM and FVM).
You can read it though, it will give you a good idea of the kind of differences you can expect between 2 types of numerical methods:
https://feaforall.com/difference-between-fem-and-fdm/
FVM is used more frequently than FEM in CFD simulation, so you will probably see it more often there.
In practice if you are just a user, you won’t see much difference.
The difference is all in the theory and in the details.
About your second question:
Yes, you need to have a bone model with the hole for the screw already drilled in it.
(Except if you plan to simulate the drilling of the screw in the bone, but that would be a pretty complex simulation and I don’t think this is what you want)
Generally you can create the drilled bone model in a CAD software using simple boolean operations.