This use case explains how you can run Ansys Mechanical simulations programmatically and receive emails with status updates and results.
Audience and persona
- Primary users: Simulation engineers, automation specialists, and method developers
- Industry: Any
- Prerequisites: Installations of Ansys MAPDL and PyMAPDL plus SMTP access for email notifications
Problems
- Running simulations manually through the Ansys Mechanical GUI can be time-consuming and require constant monitoring when only small adjustments need to be made each time.
- Engineers can lose a lot of valuable time to simulations that fail early on in their expected runtime for unexpected reasons.
- Without sitting at their workstations, engineers must know as soon as possible when a simulation finishes and whether it succeeded.
Solution
Use PyMAPDL scripts to automate simulation execution and send email notifications upon completion, including success status and optional result attachments.
Benefits
- Eliminates manual monitoring, allowing engineers to run simulations overnight, on holidays, or on weekends
- Reduces turnaround time for simulation workflows
- Improves productivity by enabling unattended execution
Features and capabilities used
- PyMAPDL scripting: Automates MAPDL commands and job submission
- Batch execution: Runs simulations without GUI interaction
- Result extraction: Retrieves key outputs (such as stress and displacement)
- Email integration: Sends success/failure notifications and optional result files
- Error handling: Captures exceptions and logs for troubleshooting
