ANSYS for UCI Engineering Students, Faculty, Researchers

ANSYS Downloads

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ANSYS 2023 R2 - Windows

• The .iso files contain the complete installation for ANSYS.

• Electromagnetics Suite is a separate installation. Use the the Electronics installer.

• If you only want to use Fluent, use the Fluent installer.

ANSYS 2023 R2 - Linux

• The .iso files contain the complete installation for ANSYS

• Electromagnetics Suite is a separate installation. Use the the Electronics installer.

• If you only want to use Fluent, use the Fluent installer.

ANSYS Electromagnetics Suite-2023 R2

• Windows

• Linux

ANSYS Optics Studio Suite-2023 R2

• • Windows

  • DCE STUDENTS  - EXTENDED STUDENTS STUDENTS:  Contact DCE IT support or your instructor with your installation questions. https://ce.uci.edu/about/staff

  • For configuring the Optics Launcher, scroll down to ANSYS Troubleshooting / Licenses for info.

Lumerical:  Any inquiries related to Lumerical should be directed to waled.raban@ansys.com. We currently don't have a license for Lumerical at UCI.

What's included in our license?

We have the ANSYS Academic  Multiphysics Campus Solution.

• This PDF explains everything included in our license. 

• We have the following license programs as of 8/14/2023:

  • • Ansys Academic Research HF

    • Ansys Academic Research HPC Workgroup 128

    • Ansys Academic Lumerical Teaching

    • Ansys Academic Teaching Optics

    • Ansys Academic Multiphysics Campus Solution

    • Ansys Academic Research HPC Workgroup

    • Ansys Academic Research Mechanical

    • Ansys Academic Research Optics 

About ANSYS Campus Software Program:

• • All ANSYS simulation tools are available to all Engineering students and faculty at UC Irvine. 

  • Our license includes, but is not limited to:

    • • ANSYS Fluent and ANSYS CFX for Computational Fluid Simulations http://www.ansys.com/products/fluids

      • ANSYS Mechanical (and APDL) for structural analysis simulations http://www.ansys.com/products/structures

      • ANSYS HFSS for high frequency electromagnetic simulation - antenna design, radar cross sections analysis, etc. http://www.ansys.com/products/electronics/ansys-hfss

      • ANSYS Maxwell for low frequency electromagnetic simulation – remote power transfer devices, electric drive simulation, etc. http://www.ansys.com/products/electronics/ansys-maxwell

      • ANSYS SpaceClaim, the easiest and fastest solution to prepare geometry for simulation http://www.ansys.com/products/platform/ansys-spaceclaim

      • ANSYS Discovery Suite (as of version 19.2), instantaneous simulation used to quickly understand how geometry changes affect the performance of your design. Discovery suite covers CFD, FEA, Thermal, and Modal simulation and optimization. Discovery live technology required a dedicated Nvidia GPU with modern architecture and at least 4 gigs of ram https://www.ansys.com/products/3d-design/ansys-discovery-live

  • LS-Dyna (25 tasks) under the ANSYS campus software program.

• The ANSYS Campus Software Program at UCI School of Engineering includes the following:

  • Solvers are all included. 

  • The license set includes 50 Research (Mech/CFD), 25 Research (Electromagnetics) and 250 Teaching of each, 75 Composites, and 128 HPC's

ANSYS Support

Visit the ANSYS Learning Forum for support

• • Search for an answer

  • Post your help question on the forum.

  • You should receive a response in 24-48 hours.

ANSYS Online Training and Tutorials

ANSYS Innovation Courses

Ansys Innovation Courses are free, online physics and engineering courses.

Using ANSYS on the HPC

Please see How to use ANSYS on the HPC

Installation Prerequisites:

Before proceeding with your ANSYS installation, please do the following:

1. Uninstall or pause third-party anti-virus software such as McAfee, Norton, AVG, etc. 

   1. 1. 1. 1. 1. DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP!!!

               2. I use the built-in Windows AV software in the computer labs.

               3. ANSYS requires a lot of exceptions to firewall rules (around 30-50) and most consumer antivirus software make it impossible to run ANSYS, especially when they bundle antivirus with firewall.

2. Disable UAC

3. Verify that your system meets the criteria specified in ANSYS hardware requirements.

Installation Instructions

You must be connected to UCI Campus Network using campus ethernet or VPN in order to install ANSYS.  

If you are using campus Wi-Fi, you need to use UCI's VPN because OIT blocks many network ports.

1)  Mount the ISO labeled ANSYS2021R1_WINX64_DISK1.

• •     Right click on file, select "Mount"

2)  Right-click the setup.exe  and select "Run as Administrator" after mounting the ISO`

3)  Click Install ANSYS Products from the menu that pops up.  Do not install the ANSYS license manager.

4)  Scroll down and click "I AGREE" and then click NEXT >>

5) Select Install Directory or leave it as the default. Do not change the checked & unchecked boxes. Click Next >>

6)  INPUT License Server info.

• You must be connected to campus via UCI VPN.

• If you are using campus Wi-Fi, you still need to use UCI's VPN because OIT blocks many network ports.

• If you continue to experience error messages, look at your Windows Firewall, Advanced Settings, Inbound Rules.

  • • Scroll through and look for any ANSYS software that might be blocked.

7) The software should select the products to be installed based on the license server so click Next >>

If you select additional products, they may not run because we are not licensed for them.

DO NOT INSTALL THE LICENSE MANAGER

Contact Lisa Preble, LPREBLE@uci.edu  if you require use of a package we are not licensed for.

8) Configure CAD

•  It's up to  you if you want to configure those during installation or after.

9) Click Next to continue installation.

10) You will reach the following install screen. It will install until it requires the second iso and the enter path to the next media window pops up. Mount the second ISO named ANSYS2021R1_WINX64_DISK2 and click browse and find your mounted iso. Do this again for Disk 3.

11) Click exit and your ANSYS software should now be ready to be used.

Further configuration for ANSYS 2021

There are additional steps for ANSYS. If you are receiving license errors, please do the following:

1) Create or edit the LSHOST Environment Variable as a System Variable and add license server IP  address

2) Check the settings in the Licensing Client Settings Manager.  This utility doesn't like special characters so use the IP address.  

• Click TEST to test connection

• Click SAVE at the bottom

Firewall settings

There are significant firewall exceptions that need to be made in order for all applications within ANSYS to function.  

• The most common problem is consumer anti-virus software blocks ANSYS.  

• For HSSOE computer labs, I use the built-in Microsoft antivirus and firewall. Below is the ANSYS firewall exception list for the HSSOE labs.

•  For your research use, you may not need all of these exceptions. 

• What I do, is I click on all of the apps in ANSYS and add a program exception whenever I see that an app is blocked.

ANSYS Troubleshooting

License Issues

1) What is the license server?

• License server

• (Ansys, Inc. requires us to hide this information).

2) I'm not getting a license, how do I check if my connection to the license server is running?

• Use the client license manager.

3) I receive an error "Failed to check out license 'hfsshpc_pack'.  License server does not support this license SR Description."

• • Please know we are licensed for HFSS HPC Pack. 

  • There is a setting you need to configure on your local installation.

  • Select Tools > Options > HPC and Analysis Options. In the HPC and Analysis Options window click the Options tab. Under HPC Licensing the default is Pack. Change Pack to Pool.

4)  I can't get a license for Optics Studio:

• Use Ansys Zemax Optics studio launcher instead of the Optics Launcher

• Also try these instructions:

  • https://optics.ansys.com/hc/en-us/articles/360026079294-How-to-obtain-a-floating-license

5)  I get ANSYS timeout issue on startup and I can't see all of the apps in Workbench

This is both a firewall issue and a flexlm timeout issue on the client (not the server).

Here's the steps to fix the issue

1)  Close ANSYS and all ANSYS apps  

2)  Make sure ansyscl.exe is added to your Windows Firewall. 

• This file is locate in the installation license file directory

• C:\Program Files\ansys inc\v232\licensingclient\winx64\ansyscl.exe

3)   Follow the instructions here to edit the ansyslmd.ini file and create a FLEXLM_TIMEOUT system variable.

Variable Name – FLEXLM_TIMEOUT

 Variable Value – 50000000

4)  If you don't see any changes then reset ANSYS using the instructions on the same page

6) How to figure out if there's license errors on your installation

• This link describes how to locate the error logs related to licensing when you start ANSYS

General ANSYS help issues

1) How to get official support

• Visit the ANSYS Support Forum

• Our direct support options are limited. Users need to post to the forums first. If the issue remains unresolved then report it to labs@eng.uci.edu and we can escalate it.

• Our Salesperson will not escalate issues unless it's posted on the forums first.

2)   How do I learn ANSYS?

• Visit ANSYS Innovation Courses

2) Is this research-level software offered without any node-restrictions?

• Yes.

3) What is the difference between the research version and instructional version?

• Currently there are no differences.

4) What are the node restrictions for Instructional-use licenses?

• There are no longer any node restrictions.

5) How do I use the ANSYS Campus software from off-campus?

• You need to connect to the UCI network using the campus VPN service.

7) Who may install the software?

• Faculty, Researchers, Graduate Students, Undergraduate Students.

8) Where can I install the software?

• You may install the software on personally-owned and University-owned computers.

9) Is the student version still available?

• No, everyone should use the Academic version available on this page.

11) How do I use Fluent?

• Please view the documentation. 

10) What platforms and hardware are supported?

• •  Here is a link for ANSYS Platform Support including benchmark tests.

13)  How to access ANSYS manuals (Windows)

• • The product manuals are included within the product installation media, for example:

    • From ANSYS Workbench GUI > Help > ANSYS Workbench Help

    • From ANSYS Mechanical GUI > Help > Mechanical Help

    • From Windows Start > All Programs > ANSYS 18.0 > Help

    • Every Workbench application has a similar Help menu process that provides access to the application’s documentation

15)  How many cores they can use with our license?

• • • For the research license, 16 cores.  On the teaching license, it's 4 cores. 

14)  How to access ANSYS on the HPC

• • • See documentation here

Node Restrictions / MultiCore - Troubleshooting

1) I keep getting node restrictions on the research version.

•  There are no more node restrictions.  HPC is restricted to 4 cores. Otherwise there are no node or core restrictions on individual installations.

2 ) My HPC installation is not multi-core.  It's supposed to use all my processor cores.

• • Configure licensing from "Pack" to Pool.

• Select Tools > Options > HPC and Analysis Options. In the HPC and Analysis Options window click the Options tab. Under HPC Licensing the default is Pack. Change Pack to Pool.

3)  How do I run a parallel process or job scheduler?

• In the Fluent Users Guide, see Chapter 34 and 35 on Parallel Processing.

• See "Running ANSYS Fluent using a Load Manager.pdf" for using ANSYS Fluent with a supported job scheduler.

  • If there is interest in parallel computing with other ANSYS tools (HFSS, and Mechanical are also popular) you can find similar documentation on the ANSYS customer portal. 

Electromagnetics Suite - Issues

1 ) ANSYS Electronics Suite does not open

A recent Windows update (2/8/2021), Microsoft update KB4571756, results in one of the Windows functions (DescribePixelFormat) crashing on startup.

For versions 2018.0 and newer, please try setting the environment variable ANSYS_EM_DONOT_PRELOAD_3DDRIVER_DLL=1 to get around the problem.

• • New SYSTEM Variable Name: ANSYS_EM_DONOT_PRELOAD_3DDRIVER_DLL

  • New Variable Value: 1

    1) Go to Control Panel\System and Security\System. Click "Advanced System Settings" on the left.

    2) Click Environment Variables

     3)  Click NEW under System Variables

     4)  Type in System Variable name and value:

• • New SYSTEM Variable Name: ANSYS_EM_DONOT_PRELOAD_3DDRIVER_DLL

  • New Variable Value: 1

5)  Click OK.

6) Start Ansys EM.  You may need to enable PPE option below on the next step.           

16)  ERROR MESSAGE:  Failover feature <FeatureName> specified in license preferences is not available.  Request name <featurename> does not exist in the licensing pool.  Feature has expired.   

This error message appeared with the 1/15/2021 license server update. 

• ANSYS says the minimum version to work with our license is 2020R1.

• Anyone using an older version MUST upgrade.

• Additionally, there is a checkbox that must be selected to enable PPE licensing:

How to Fix:

  1) Verify Ansys EM version is 2020R1 or newer

  2) Open EM Desktop.

  3) Go to Tools -> Options -> General Options -> Desktop configuration", then check the first box for enabling PPE license mode

ANSYS Videos