ANSYS Undocumented Commands

There are many command options available with the ANSYS finite element program that are not commonly documented but may be useful in your analysis endeavors. These commands remain undocumented (as of Release 6.1) because they are not fully QA'd by ANSYS or haven't been fully implemented. Below is a small listing of some commands/options you may have a need to use sometime. Neither ANSYS or DRD warrant any use of these commands so use them at your own risk.

Modeling and Loads Element Options
APDL Programming Miscellaneous

Geometry Modeling and Creation
ASBA, VSBW, VSBV, etc.
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These solid modeling commands (among others) have an undocumented 8th field which allows a solid model operation on an entity that has a meshed line or area. For example: VSBW,3,,,,,,,mesh will divide Volume 3 by the working plane although one of the areas of Volume 3 is already meshed. This feature could result in big time savings so remeshing volumes that are already meshed is not necessary. Caution: Cutting through a feature that is already meshed (such as dividing the area that is already meshed) will likely corrupt the database so common sense needs to be used with this option.

CEWRITE - Write constraint equations.

CPWRITE - Writes nodal coupling information.

CECHECK - This undocumented command checks constraint equations for non-zero rigid regions.

P, node1,node2,pressure,,,,node3,node4 - Undocumented command for applying pressure to nodes.

RWRITE - Writes real constant information out to a file.

ETWRITE - Writes element type information out to a file.

NBETWEEN, node1,node2,nnew, type, value - This command will generate a node between two other nodes using these arguments. Defaults to a ratio of 0.5.
    node1 - first node
    node2 - second node
    nnew - new node number
    type - ratio for ratio, dist for distance
    value - numerical value for ratio or distance

NUMCMP,NODE,EORD - This will reorder the nodes based on the element order vector.

LSX(Line number, unit distance) - This undocumented command will assign the X direction slope of the line at a unit distance from the first keypoint that comprises the line. Similar functions are LSY and LSZ.

KROT - Undocumented command that works similar to the NROTATE command. The /PSYM,NDIR,1 also turns on the rotated keypoint coordinate system symbols.

ARVL - Selects all areas associated with currently active volumes.

LSAR - Selects all lines associated with currently active areas.

ALLP,nloop,(line numbers) - This undocumented command creates areas with holes in them. It supports up to 4 internal loops (nloop). The arguments after the nloop argument are the line numbers that comprise the area. The line numbers for each loop must be consecutive.

CWZDELE,real,1 - This command will delete a contact pair that is currently defined by simply specifying the real constant number in the REAL field. The '1' will delete the element types as well. For example: cwzdele,4,1  will delete the contact elements represented by real constant 4 and the contact element types which comprise that pair.

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Element Options

PLANE55 Thickness Option - This option is supported when keyoption(3)=3.

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APDL Programming

DEBUG - When creating macros or input files, it is often useful to execute them one line at a time to determine where your programming logic breaks down. Placing this command as the first line in the file allows you to do this.

*UILIST, FILENAME, EXT, DIR - Lists the contents of a file to a 'pop-up' window when running interactively. It is similar to the *LIST command but this version runs from within a macro while *LIST does not.

*GET,Pname,ACTIVE,,SYNAME - This undocumented option on the *GET command allows you to obtain the first 8 characters of the system name. (i.e. INTEL NT). You can also obtain the last 4 characters using a second parameter: *GET,Pname2,ACTIVE,,SYNAME,,START,9.

_return - This undocumented parameter is updated with every solid modeling operation. You can store in a variable this value while programming. For example if you just did a solid modeling operation that created a line, a =_return will store the number of that line in a.

*STAT,_prm - Lists the hidden parameters in ANSYS (parameters leading with an _ are reserved for ANSYS internal use). Likewise using prm_ as the argument will show those parameters with a trailing underscore.

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Miscellaneous
/CLEAR,SOLU
- Clears the database of the current solution in memory while keeping the database intact. This nifty options allows you to dump the solution without exiting the program.

/UIS,MSGPOP,4 - Disables all pop-up windows in the GUI.

/UI, AN3D, 1 - Starts the 3D annotation widget.

SOLVE,,,,,NOCHECK - Allows a solution to be performed while bypassing all element checks. Occasionally, you may have a model that would not solve because of some badly shaped elements. This option helps out in this case.

SET - It is possible to postprocess a model without a database in memory by simply accessing a particular .rst file. This allows you to use less memory (because the database will not be in it) for large models.

KEYWORD, BETA, 1 - This undocumented option of the KEYWORD command activates some program capabilities under development.

RSYNC,ON - Will force the dump of the element stresses to the results file after a load step is completed instead of at the end of the next substep or completed solution.

/NERR,,,-1 - This command will allow you to ignore all error messages.

CBDOF,,,,,,,,,,factor - (10 commas) This undocumented option allows you to adjust the range used for interpolating results.

/CONFIG,NOELDBW,(1,2,3) - The arguments in the third field are undocumented.
    1 - Do not write results to the .db file, only .rst
    2 - Do not write results to the .rst file, only .db
    3 - Do not write results to either .rst or .db files

CLIST,(csys #) - This undocumented command allows you to list nodes in any given coordinate system without using a DSYS command first.

/DEMO,#,1 - This undocumented command gives you a benchmark for you graphics card. You can rotate your model some # of times and a printout of the performance will appear in the output window.

JOBNAME.SOLC - When this undocumented file is placed in the working directory, ANSYS will read it during the currently running solution. Solution commands such as CNVTOL, NSUBST, NEQIT, etc. may be placed in this file to affect the convergence behavior of the run. This allows the user to modify the solver parameters without stopping the current solution.

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