ANSYS

ANSYS is a comprehensive coupled physics tool combining structural, thermal, CFD, acoustic and electromagnetic simulation capabilities. HPC ANSYS uses the campus ANSYS license managed by the College of Engineering.

External Links:
ANSYS website



HPC ANSYS uses the campus ANSYS license managed by the College of Engineering. To access ANSYS users must accept the license terms. Select the Request Access button in the ANSYS entry in the list of Officially Supported Applications on the HPC software web page to accept the license terms. Access should be enabled within a day of accepting the terms.

There are many versions of ANSYS installed on the HPC cluster (Hazel), use command

module avail ansys

to view the versions. Version 25.2 is the default version loaded by the ansys module. To use ANSYS 25.2, you need to do the command

module load ansys

to set up appropriate environment. To use other versions of ANSYS, such as 23.2, you need to do the command module load ansys/23.2 to set up appropriate environment. Instructions below are based on using the default version 25.2. If you use other versions of ANSYS, you need to make corresponding changes in module names and ANSYS commands.

To run ANSYS jobs on Hazel you should create a job submission script such as the following:

#!/bin/bash

#BSUB -n 4
#BSUB -W 10
#BSUB -R "span[ptile=2]"
#BSUB -R "select[model!=Plat8358]"    # There is currently an issue running ANSYS 25.2 on the Platinum 8358 nodes
#BSUB -R rusage[mem=15GB]
#BSUB -e vm2.err.%J
#BSUB -o vm2.out.%J

export KMP_AFFINITY=disabled

module load ansys
ansys252 -dis -np 4 -j VM -b < vm2.dat -dir /share/$GROUP/$USER

where in /share/$GROUP/$USER the $GROUP will be your group name and the $USER will be your Unity ID. It is your directory in the scratch file system. ANSYS writes temporary files to that directory due to the parameter -dir /share/$GROUP/$USER specification. If you want ANSYS to write temporary files to a different directory then you can change /share/$GROUP/$USER to a different directory name.

NOTE: the file vm2.dat may be copied from /usr/local/apps/ansys2/example/vm2.dat.

If it is difficult to obtain licenses to run ANSYS, then you may wish to convert your models to use ABAQUS, a commercial finite element package for which our licensing may be less restricted.

The bsub command should be issued from the directory that contains the ANSYS input file. The standard output and standard error output from the job will be placed in the directory where the bsub command was issued.

Fluent

To use Fluent in ANSYS 20.1, you still to do the command

module load ansys

to set up appropriate environment. To use Fluent in other versions of ANSYS, you need to spell out the particular version in the module name, such as module load ansys/23.2 to set up appropriate environment.
Below is the job script of a sample Fluent job. Please note that the Fluent command syntax is different between using ANSYS version 20.1 or earlier and using ANSYS version 21.2 or later.

#!/bin/bash

#BSUB -n 40
#BSUB -W 60
#BSUB -o out.%J
#BSUB -e err.%J

module load ansys

<Fluent command>

For using ANSYS version 20.1 or earlier, the <Fluent command> in the job script will be:

fluent 2ddp -g -lsf -i inputfile.in

Don't change the part of -lsf in the Fluent command since that flag hooks up Fluent with batch job scheduler LSF on HPC system so that your job will be run using the resources that you request with the #BSUB syntax.
For using ANSYS version 21.2 or later, the <Fluent command> in the job script will be:

fluent 2ddp -g -t$LSB_DJOB_NUMPROC -cnf=`echo $LSB_HOSTS | tr " " ","` -i inputfile.in

Don't change the part of -t$LSB_DJOB_NUMPROC -cnf=`echo $LSB_HOSTS | tr " " ","` in the Fluent command.
The $LSB_DJOB_NUMPROC is the number of cores requested by the LSF job. In this case it is 40. You may replace $LSB_DJOB_NUMPROC by 40 but the disadvantage of using a hard number is in jobs where you change number of cores to request you also need to change the number after -t. If you use $LSB_DJOB_NUMPROC then when you want to change number of cores to request you can just change the number in #BSUB -n 40.
The -cnf=`echo $LSB_HOSTS | tr " " ","` gives all the hosts used for the job. You cannot change anything in there.

Use GUI Interface

ANSYS

If you need to use the ANSYS GUI interface, then you need to use the GUI on VCL node. Refer to HPC-VCL node for generally how to use the HPC environment under VCL.

After you log into the VCL node, open a terminal, and type:

module load ansys

to set up ANSYS environment. Then, if you want to use the ANSYS GUI, type

launcher

to launch the ANSYS GUI interface. It is recommended to run launcher from a terminal that is connected to the HPC-VCL via ssh -X <username>@<HPC-VCL IP address>, rather than using the RDP file method of connecting to the HPC-VCL.

Fluent

If you want to use the Fluent GUI, type

fluent

to launch the Fluent GUI interface.

Last modified: September 23 2026 04:54:58.