Compute Canada

Where is "Abaqus " located and how do I access it?

Please note: The FAQ pages at the HPCVL website are continuously being revised. Some pages might pertain to an older configuration of the system. Please let us know if you encounter problems or inaccuracies, and we will correct the entries.

The present version of Abaqus is 6.5. The programs in the Abaqus package are located in the directory /opt/abaqus-6.5

Note that only the ABAQUS/Standard and ABAQUS/Explicit packages are installed on the HPCVL clusters. This is because these components are the "number crunching" elements of Abaqus, whereas the ABAQUS/CAE component is used interactively for pre- and post-processing. The latter runs only on PC systems under Windows or Linux.

It is a good idea to include the directory/opt/abaqus-6.5/Commands in your PATH or set an environment variable before using Abaqus:

setenv ABAQUS_HOME /opt/abaqus-6.5/Commands (for csh) 
export ABAQUS_HOME=/opt/abaqus-6.5/Commands (for bash)

If the directory was included in the PATH, the software is called by simply invoking "abaqus"; if the environment variable was set, the call would be to "$ABAQUS_HOME/abaqus".

Alternatively, you can take advantage of theusepackagefacility on our cluster, and simply type

use abaqus65

from the command prompt or include that line in your .login or .bash_profile setup file.

To use Abaqus on the HPCVL machines, you have to be covered by an academic Abaqus licenseoutsideof HPCVL, i.e. you have to be a "licensed University User of Abaqus". It is furthermore required that you read our licensing agreement, and sign a statement. Note that our license does count as a license for Queen's University. We will confirm your statement, and you will then be made a member of a Unix group"abaqus", which enables you to run the software. Contact us if you are in doubt of whether you will be able to run Abaqus on our system. We also will submit your name and affiliation to Abaqus Inc. for a check if a prior university license exists.

If you need to use the pre- and post-processing software ABAQUS/CAE, you have two options. Either you use your local university license to install and use the software on your PC. Or, you contact us and we make our license available to you on a single machine with a fixed IP address only. Note that the number of simultaneous CAE sessions supported by our license is presently limited to 3 (three).

Our Abaqus license is "seat limited" and "process limited". The licensing scheme utilizes so-called "tokens". At present, there are 150 tokens available. A single-process run of Abaqus (Standard or Analysis) uses 5 tokens, multiple process-runs use more according to the formula:

Tokens = Int (5 * Processes^0.422)

To check how many license tokens are available, you can use the following command:

/opt/abaqus-6.5/License/lmstat -a -c /opt/abaqus-6.5/License/license.dat

which will tell you how many of the 150 tokens are presently in use.