HM-8090: Create an OptiStruct PSHELL Property

In this tutorial you will create an OptiStruct PSHELL property.

You will create a Tcl script that:

Prompts you for a property name and thickness
Creates the property collector
Assigns the OptiStruct PSHELL card image to the property collector
Assigns the thickness value to the property

The Tcl command if will be used to add logic to the script. The commands *dictionaryload and *attributeupdatedouble are used to assign information to the property collector.

Solver-specific data created from the HyperMesh template system is stored in card images. Each piece of data that defines a card image has a text string (data name) and a numeric attribute ID. An example is the Young’s Modulus for a material.

Templates exist for each solver supported by HyperMesh and are located in sub-folders under the <altair_home>\templates\feoutput directory. These templates define every solver-specific attribute including data names, attribute IDs, card image formats, and the format of the data upon export. The *defineattribute command is used to define attribute data names and IDs in a template file.

In order to determine the commands required to create template-specific data, it is best to run through the process inHyperMesh and to review the commands that are written to the command file.

Property collectors can be created and edited using the Model Browser. Simply right-click in the Model Browser and select Create > Property to create one. To change the name, color, or card image of a property collector, right-click on the property name in the Model Browser and select Edit.

Define the Process

In this step, you will define the process.

The script should automate the following process.

Prompt you to enter a name and a thickness value.
Make sure a property collector with the supplied name does not already exist.
Create the new property collector.
Assign the PSHELL card image to the property.
Assign the thickness to the PSHELL card.

Delete the Existing Command File

In this step you will delete the existing command file.

The current command file is located in the current working directory. When first opening HyperMesh, the file is created in the directory HyperMesh is launched from. As soon as you begin working in HyperMesh, all executed commands are written to the command file. If the file already exists, the commands are appended to the file. Deleting the file allows HyperMesh to create a new file and allows you to easily find the relevant commands.

Locate the existing command.tcl file in the working directory.
Delete the file.

Perform the Operations

In this step you will execute the process within HyperMesh.

Every command issued in HyperMesh appears in the order executed and is reflected in the command file.

If the OptiStruct user profile is not currently loaded, load it now.
Right-click in the Model Browser and select Create > Property.
Leave Type set to all and in the Name field, type a name for the property.
For card image=, select PSHELL.
Check the option for Card edit property upon creation.
Click Create.
Activate the T field and type a thickness value.
Click return.

Extract Commands

In this step you will extract commands from the command file.

Open the command file using any text editor.
Select and copy all lines in the file.

Convert Commands to Tcl Format

In this step you will create a Tcl script by converting the commands to Tcl format and modifying as necessary.

Create a new Tcl file using any text editor.
Paste the copied commands from the command file inside the Tcl file.
Remove all () and , and replace them with spaces. Also place semi-colons (;) at the end of each line. The commands should look something like the following:
```
*createentity property name="my_prop";
*createmark properties 2 "my_prop";
*setvalue property name="my_prop" cardimage="PSHELL";
*initializeattributes properties “my_prop”;
*attributeupdatedouble properties 1 95 1 1 0 0.25;
```
These commands can now be run to duplicate the creation of the PSHELL property. However, simply running these commands as-is is not very flexible. The property ID, name and values are all hard coded. The template file location in the *setvalue command is also hard coded. Finally, there are a lot of extra commands that set unnecessary attributes.
In the *attributeupdatedouble command, the ID of the property is hard coded. In order to make this flexible, you need to replace the hard coded ID with the ID of the new property collector. Make changes to the commands as shown in bold print below.
```
*createentity property name="my_prop";
*createmark properties 2 -1
set prop_id [hm_getmark props 2];
*setvalue property name="my_prop" cardimage="PSHELL";
*attributeupdatedouble properties $prop_id 95 1 1 0 0.25;
```
Supplying an ID of -1 to the *createmark command can be used to select the most recently created entity.

Finally, you need to add logic to test in order to make sure that the property name and thickness values are valid:

set prop_name [hm_getstring "Name="];
if {$prop_name == ""} {
    hm_errormessage "No name specified.";
    return;
} elseif {[hm_entityinfo exist properties $prop_name –byname] == 1} {
    hm_errormessage "Property already exists.";
    return;
}
set prop_thick [hm_getfloat "Thickness="];
if {$prop_thick == "" || $prop_thick <= 0.0} {
    hm_errormessage "Invalid thickness value specified.";
    return;
}
*createentity property name="my_prop";
*createmark properties 2 "$prop_name";
set prop_id [hm_getmark props 2];
*setvalue property name="my_prop" cardimage="PSHELL";
*attributeupdatedouble properties $prop_id 95 1 1 0 $prop_thick;

Test the Script

In this step you will test the script.

From the menu bar, select View > Command Window to display the command window at the bottom of the screen.
Click and drag to open the command window from the top or bottom edge of the screen.
Use the source command to execute the script. For example: source filename.tcl.

It is often necessary to debug Tcl scripts using the command window. This allows you to run the Tcl script and easily review error messages, as well as print out debug information. Additional details can be found in the Creating Tcl Scripts and Running Tcl Scripts sections.