ansys-mechanical-core 0.7.0

A python wrapper for Ansys Mechanical

Overview

PyMechanical brings Ansys Mechanical to Python. It enables your Python programs to use Mechanical within Python’s ecosystem. It includes the ability to:

• Connect to a remote Mechanical session

• Embed an instance of Mechanical directly as a Python object

Install the package

PyMechanical has three installation modes: user, developer, and offline.

Install in user mode

Before installing PyMechanical in user mode, ensure that you have the latest version of pip installed by running this command:

python -m pip install -U pip

Then, install PyMechanical by running this command:

python -m pip install ansys-mechanical-core

Caution!

PyMechanical is currently hosted in a private PyPI repository. You must provide the index URL to the private PyPI repository:

• Index URL: https://pkgs.dev.azure.com/pyansys/_packaging/pyansys/pypi/simple/

If access to this package registry is needed, email [e-mail] to request access. The PyAnsys team can give you a read-only token to insert in ${PRIVATE_PYPI_ACCESS_TOKEN}. Once you have this token, run this command:

pip install ansys-mechanical-core --index-url=https://${PRIVATE_PYPI_ACCESS_TOKEN}@pkgs.dev.azure.com/pyansys/_packaging/pyansys/pypi/simple/

Install in developer mode

Installing PyMechanical in developer mode allows you to modify the source and enhance it.

Note

Before contributing to the project, ensure that you are thoroughly familiar with the PyAnsys Developer’s Guide.

To install PyMechanical in developer mode, perform these steps:

1. Clone the pymechanical repository:

   git clone https://github.com/pyansys/pymechanical

2. Access the pymechanical directory where the repository has been cloned:

   cd pymechanical

3. Create a clean Python virtual environment and activate it:

   # Create a virtual environment
   python -m venv .venv
   
   # Activate it in a POSIX system
   source .venv/bin/activate
   
   # Activate it in Windows CMD environment
   .venv\Scripts\activate.bat
   
   # Activate it in Windows Powershell
   .venv\Scripts\Activate.ps1

4. Ensure that you have the latest required build system tools:

   python -m pip install -U pip tox flit twine

5. Install the project in editable mode:

   # Install the minimum requirements
   python -m pip install -e .
   
   # Install the minimum + tests requirements
   python -m pip install -e .[tests]
   
   # Install the minimum + doc requirements
   python -m pip install -e .[doc]
   
   # Install all requirements
   python -m pip install -e .[tests,doc]

6. Verify your development installation:

   tox

Install in offline mode

If you lack an internet connection on your installation machine (or you do not have access to the private Ansys PyPI packages repository), you should install PyMechanical by downloading the wheelhouse archive from the Releases Page for your corresponding machine architecture.

Each wheelhouse archive contains all the Python wheels necessary to install PyMechanical from scratch on Windows, Linux, and MacOS from Python 3.7 to 3.11. You can install a wheelhouse archive on an isolated system with a fresh Python installation or on a virtual environment.

On Linux

This code shows how to unzip the wheelhouse archive and install PyMechanical on Linux with Python 3.7:

unzip ansys-mechanical-core-v0.7.dev3-wheelhouse-Linux-3.7.zip wheelhouse
pip install ansys-mechanical-core -f wheelhouse --no-index --upgrade --ignore-installed

On Windows

If you’re on Windows with Python 3.9, unzip the wheelhouse archive to a wheelhouse directory and then install PyMechanical using the preceding command.

Consider installing into a virtual environment.

Dependencies

You must have a licensed copy of Ansys Mechanical installed. When using an embedded instance, that installation must be runnable from the same computer as your Python program. When using a remote session, a connection to that session must be reachable from your Python program.

Getting started

PyMechanical uses the built-in scripting capabilities of Mechanical. For information on the scripting APIs available, see the Scripting in Mechanical Guide in the Ansys Help.

Configuring the Mechanical installation

On a Windows system, the environment variable AWP_ROOT<ver> is configured when Mechanical is installed, where <ver> is the Mechanical release number, such as 231 for release 2023 R1. PyMechanical automatically uses this environment variable (or variables if there are multiple installations of different versions) to locate the latest Mechanical installation. On a Linux system, you must configure the AWP_ROOT<ver> environment variable to point to the absolute path of a Mechanical installation.

Starting a remote session

To start a remote session of Mechanical on your computer from Python, use the launch_mechanical() method. This methods returns an object representing the connection to the session:

import ansys.mechanical.core as pymechanical

mechanical = pymechanical.launch_mechanical()

Running commands on the remote session

Given a connection to a remote session, you can send an IronPython script. This uses the built-in scripting capabilities of Mechanical. Here is an example:

result = mechanical.run_python_script("2+3")
result = mechanical.run_python_script("ExtAPI.DataModel.Project.ProjectDirectory")

Using an embedded instance of Mechanical as a Python object

PyMechanical also supports directly embedding an instance of Mechanical as a Python object. In this mode, there is no externally running instance of Mechanical. This feature is supported on Windows for version 2023 R1 and later, and it will be supported on Linux for version 2023 R2 and later. Here is an example:

import ansys.mechanical.core as pymechanical

app = pymechanical.App()
result = app.ExtAPI.DataModel.Project.ProjectDirectory

Testing

This project takes advantage of tox. This tool automates common development tasks (similar to Makefile), but it is oriented towards Python development.

Using tox

While Makefile has rules, tox has environments. In fact, tox creates its own virtual environment so that anything being tested is isolated from the project to guarantee the project’s integrity.

The following environment commands are provided:

• tox -e style: Checks for coding style quality.

• tox -e py: Checks for unit tests.

• tox -e py-coverage: Checks for unit testing and code coverage.

• tox -e doc: Checks for documentation-building process.

Raw testing

If required, from the command line, you can call style commands like black, isort, and flake8. You can also call unit testing commands like pytest. However, running these commands do not guarantee that your project is being tested in an isolated environment, which is the reason why tools like tox exist.

Using pre-commit

The style checks implemented for PyMechanical take advantage of pre-commit. Developers are not forced but are encouraged to install this tool by running this command:

python -m pip install pre-commit && pre-commit install

Documentation

For building documentation, you can run the usual rules provided in the Sphinx make file. Here is an example:

#  build and view the doc from the POSIX system
make -C doc/ html && your_browser_name doc/html/index.html

# build and view the doc from CMD / PowerShell environment
.\doc\make.bat clean
.\doc\make.bat html
start .\doc\_build\html\index.html

However, the recommended way of checking documentation integrity is to use tox:

tox -e doc && your_browser_name .tox/doc_out/index.html

Distributing

If you would like to create either source or wheel files, start by installing the building requirements and then executing the build module:

python -m pip install -U pip
python -m flit build
python -m twine check dist/*