Progress Tab |
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Progress Tab |
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When an analysis is running, PipeLay continually writes information about the analysis to the Progress tab.
Example Progress Tab
The figure above shows an example Progress tab for a dynamic/full fatigue analysis. As you can see, the tab is in four sections:
The topmost section of the tab presents a summary of the overall analysis progress, and informs you which installation stage is currently running. Any warnings or errors messages generated by the analysis engine during the reading of the input data are contained in this section.
Note that this section is not present when running an analysis with the Run Stages in Parallel on the Properties tab is set to Yes.
This section of the tab presents more detailed information regarding the progress of one specific analysis stage.
If the stages are being executed in parallel, the drop-down list will show all stages that are set to execute and a final stage labelled Summary Post-Processing which shows the results of summary post-processing and code checking. The default selected stage will be the first stage to be executed.
If the stages are not set to run in Parallel, the value is set to Currently Running Stage, but you can use the Stage Section Progress drop-down list to change this to any preceding stage, if you want perhaps to review what happened then. Any convergence difficulties encountered during an installation stage will be output here, along with any relevant error and warning messages generated during the running of the analysis.
The third section of the Progress Tab provides information on time variables in a dynamic analysis. It is disabled for a static analysis. The current analysis time, the iteration number and the analysis time step are displayed, while the progress bar at the bottom provides a quick visual check of how much of an analysis has run, and how close or otherwise it is to completing. Just above the progress bar, PipeLay provides an estimate of the actual (clock) time required to complete an analysis. This is calculated on the basis of the percentage of the total simulation already completed, and the elapsed time since the analysis began. No estimates are provided until after the first 10% of the simulation time, as they would likely be unreliable until then. Naturally this output can provide no more than a rough guide only, although in the majority of cases the reliability of the estimate will increase as the run proceeds.
The output in the fourth section is only generated during a Fatigue analysis in which the Full Analysis option has been selected. The output itself is intended to help you to decide if a random sea analysis has been running for long enough for response statistics to converge on a steady state, hence the heading given to this section is Fatigue Convergence. Note that once the statistics become steady state, you might choose to stop the analysis stage in question and proceed to the next one, thus cutting down on run time.
What PipeLay is actually plotting on the Fatigue Convergence section can be explained as follows. As a random sea dynamic analysis of a pipeline proceeds, PipeLay continuously calculates at each node the mean value and standard deviation of axial force, y-bending moment and z-bending moment. For each of these six parameters, PipeLay then computes a rate of change in value from the previous solution time. From the six rates of changes at all nodes, PipeLay then selects the absolute maximum value. This value, plotted as a function of time, is the Fatigue Convergence output.
An additional article provides information on the Progress Tab Best Practice.