Introduction

USER FATAL MESSAGE 1012 USER FATAL MESSAGE 1221 The errors are associated with database space limits and more commonly with the scratch databases. Presented is a brief summary of information that will help users avoid these errors near 90%. This note is not intended to be a replacement for user guides and training seminars.

Scratch-1

DATABASES

There are two general databases to be aware of

Scratch DBALL/MASTER

Scratch is broken into two pieces

LOGICAL which holds temporary matrices (datablocks) generated by DMAP modules. These temporary matrices will be needed in a subsequent matrix calculation. They are automatically erased after the last time they are used. SCR300 which holds the FORTRAN and C scratch files. Data recovery modules when the =ALL has been requested can generate large scratch files in SCR300.

DBALL and MASTER are used for restarts

Scratch-2

DATABASES

There are defaults for the scratch file sizes

250000 blocks for LOGICAL and 250000 blocks for SCR300 1 BLOCK =1 BUFFSIZE (see KEYWORDS) These limits are not communicated to the operating system NASTRAN does not check if there is enough disk space to hold 5000000 blocks of information 250000 blocks for DBALL and 5000 blocks for MASTER 1 BLOCK =1 BUFFSIZE (see KEYWORDS) These limits are not communicated to the operating system NASTRAN does not check if there is enough disk space to hold 250000 blocks of DBALL information and 5000 blocks of MASTER information Location, BUFFSIZE, maximum size,
Scratch-3

There are defaults for DBALL and MASTER

The .f04 contains important information on all these files

Keywords

There are several NASTRAN command line keywords that can be used to easily expand the databases:

BUFFSIZE where the default is 8193 and the maximum is 65537

The value supplied is rounded up or down to fit this equation:

BUFFSIZE = n * (1024 ) + 1

Applies to ALL the databases Example for MASTER

BUFFSIZE 4097 8193 16385 32769

MASTER (bytes) 3309568 5668864 10289152 38797312

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Keywords

SSCR will set the maximum internal limit for all scratch

Examples: SSCR=64GB NASTRAN does not check if this space is available on the physical disk Your system limits apply to the max value assigned by SSCR Does not apply to MASTER Examples: SDBALL=40GB NASTRAN does not check if this space is available on the physical disk Your system limits apply to the max value assigned by SDBALL ALL scratch files go to this location Only the FMS ASSIGN statement can redirect scratch files to multiple directories ALL MASTER/DBALL files go to this location Only the FMS ASSIGN statement can redirect MASTER/DBALL files to multiple directories

SDBALL will set the maximum internal limit for DBALL

SDIR specifies where the scratch files are written

DBS specifies where the MASTER/DBALL files are written

Scratch-5

System Cells

System cells are set in the file or in the Run Configuration file

BUFFSIZE is also a system cell NASTRAN SYSTEM(151)=1

Allows the SCR300 part of scratch to write into the LOGICAL section

Keywords can also be set in the Run Configuration file

Run Configuration file names (xxx is the numerical version of NASTRAN)

nastxxxrc - unix nastxxx.rcf - Windows Look in the .log file for the location of the Run Configuration file

Located in the conf directory

Local Run Configuration file in your login directory overides conf .nastxxxrc - unix (Note filename begins with a period!)

nastxxx.rcf - Windows

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FMS

The brute force method INIT statement for initializing the internal logical file names ASSIGN to associate the internal logical names to the physical file names on the disk drives Only method for using multiple directories for scratch Avoid placing any database file or scratch file on an NFS mounted file system

I/O time will cause wallclock times to climb to painful levels

Scratch-7

FMS - INIT

INIT statement

Scratch-8

FMS - INIT

INIT statement - keywords

DBSET-name the Logical or internal Nastran database name that is being defined LOGICAL the physical filename that DBSET-name is associated with Max-size defines the maximum size of the file

This size is an internal NASTRAN limit and is not communicated to the operating system nor is a check made to verify the file size will fit on the disk pack

For user convenience the user can use one of the following keywords when setting max-size

Scratch-9

FMS - INIT

INIT statement DBALL example

INIT DBALL LOGICAL=(DB1(2GB),DB2(2GB),DB3(2GB),DB4(2GB))

This example breaks up the DBALL database into 2GB portions: DB1, DB2, DB3 and DB4. When the 2GB maximum file limit was common for unix operating systems, this was how large DBALL databases had to be specified.

Scratch-10

FMS - INIT

INIT statement LOGICAL scratch example

INIT SCRATCH LOGICAL=(LOG1(5GB),LOG2(5GB),LOG3(5GB),LOG4(5GB), LOG5(5GB),LOG6(5GB))

This is another example of breaking up a file, SCRATCH, to overcome a system limits. In this case the ASSIGN statement would then associate these individual log-name (LOG1, LOG2,) to physical files. These files would likely reside on individual directories or disk drives that have enough space to accommodate a 5 GB sized file. The end purpose is to avoid filling the directories or drives thus causing a system error, stopping NASTRAN.

Scratch-11

FMS - ASSIGN

Scratch-12

FMS - ASSIGN

logical-key internal MSC.NASTRAN filename

A list of these can be found in the Quick Reference Guide DBALL and MASTER are logical-key (but not listed in the QRG) Pathnames are accepted and recommended Case sensitive for unix files is preserved Spaces in filenames or directory names are not recommended Relevant to OUTPUT2 /INPUTT2 or OUTPUT4/INPUTT4 pairs FORTRAN unit number associated with the filename Relevant to OUTPUT2 /INPUTT2 or OUTPUT4/INPUTT4 pairs

filename2 external system filename

Status FORTRAN status

Unit=u

Scratch-13

FMS - ASSIGN

TEMP

If this is present on the ASSIGN statement the filename2 will be deleted at the conclusion of the run If this is present on the ASSIGN statement the filename2 will be deleted at the start of the run

DELETE

FORM ASCII or binary format selection (limited application)

Formatted does not mean ASCII readable for binary files Formatted is a special encoded ASCII file that is platform independent The rcout2 utility returns the file to the binary format

Scratch-14

FMS - ASSIGN
Examples:

ASSIGN DBALL=run1.DB ASSIGN MASTER=run1.M

This will override the default file names run1.DBALL and run1.MASTER. This is useful when filename and path become excessively long.

Scratch-15

Additional Information

Solution 4893

TECHNIQUES FOR SOLVING LARGE MODELS WITH MSC/NASTRAN FMS statement descriptions

Section 2 of the Quick Reference Guide

Read the Installation and Operations Guide. We allow anyone to download the PDF version of this guide:

http://www.mscsoftware.com/support/prod_support/nastran/

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