ANSYS gripes

[Phrenoclast]

Hello and apologies in advance for coming from a place of anger.

I'm a mech eng consultant, and most of my gigs throw me into new industries using new software all the time. Recently I have had the dubious pleasure of getting deep into ANSYS again. Last time was in 2005, and back then we dumped it in favor of Pro/Mechanica because we actually wanted work done.

Anyway, today's annoyance is this: if I have the Workbench open, and right-click on Solution or Results, and choose "Clear Generated Data" - how come my work folder does not decrease in size? I save the project, and the folder is still humongous. I can fit three analyses on my ½TB SSD, so this is not a trivial problem. The table rows do show a proper lightning bolt icon, suggesting they hold on to no current data.

It seems I have to open my analysis with Edit and use the same command there instead, on each of the substeps (structural, modal, harmonic response). Then save.

Is this really how I am expected to do it? Every time?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Phrenoclast]

Also: "reset" doesn't do anything.

Also: attempting to clear the data from Workbench takes a minute - whereas the same operations in the Edit (or "Mechanical") window takes less than a second. Aside from the fact that the latter works whereas the former doesn't - what's up with that?

Also: saving the project from Workbench takes another minute, saving it from Edit takes a second.

 

[L_K]

Could be a corrupted Workbench file. You could try exporting a mechdat file from Mechanical (edit) and import
it to a new project.

 

[Phrenoclast]

Thanks for answering!

Clearing the data from the Mechanical ("Edit") interface consistently works well across all my simulations.
Clearing the data from the Workbench interface consistently does not do anything at all, as it seems.

I tested your idea on a current simulation whose work directory is currently 41 856 MB.
The exported file was 57 MB.
I imported it into a new project. Its folder is 57 MB and it contains everything. Indata, outdata, everything.

Where did the other 41 799 MB go? And if they were so useless, why did they exist?

I mean, if they are just garbage leftovers, why aren't they in the TEMP directory instead?

 

[L_K]

Try clearing the data in the new project and solve it. At the moment it doesn't include
results. You can see the old results still but cannot for example create more results.

 

[Phrenoclast]

I see that you are right. I could not generate new results without resolving everything, and that caused the work folder to blow up to the original size. Thanks for the enlightenment!