Using Mathcad for API 650 Design, Slows to a Crawl

[jimmyhutmacher]

I spent a considerable amount of time creating a robust API-650 design program in Mathcad. Apparently it got too complex/large for Mathcad to handle because it's now so slow it's basically unusable. Anyone else run into this issue? Any tips? My PC is pretty powerful btw, 3.8 GHz I7 processer and 64GB of ram.

 

[IFRs]

I have a Mathcad worksheet that does API 650, including 1-ft method, VDPM, Annex M, Annex A option, volume calcs for cone up, cone down, flat and shove bottoms, shell plate fabrication details, annular plates, shell toughness, frangibility, Annex F, buoyancy when dike flooded, anchor chairs, stability for wind, seismic and internal pressure loads, top and intermediate wind girders, foundation loading, aluminum dome geometry, rafter clip details, internal suspeneded floating roof loads on single column, 2-bay and 3-bay cone roofs, self supported cone, umbrella and dome roofs, ringwall foundation design, etc. It's 8.7 Mb in size and does not suffer from any slowness that I see. I use a laptop with an Intel I9 at 2.40 GHz, 32 Mb RAM, 64-bit Windwos 10 Pro, 1 Tb SSD for Windows, 1Tb SSD for programs and data

 

[JStephen]

It sounds like researching exactly what is eating up the time is in order.
Roof and bottom layouts and roof structural layouts don't take that long to evaluate, but if you start trying to optimize them, you have endless possibilities. Shell analysis theory could get bogged down with an excessive number of shell courses.

 

[jimmyhutmacher]

Thank you for the responses. IFR, the fact that your API 650 Mathcad design program works without bogging down is great to hear, especially since you seem to have more details of the code built in. I currently have Mathcad techies looking into why mine runs so slow. I have a few questions about your program if you don't mind:

Are you using Mathcad Prime 8.0?
For design of rafters, columns, top angle, shell stiffening rings, etc., do you use an embedded Excel for the dimensional properties?
You must have a ton of if/then programming and loops?
Did you specifically write to perform faster?
Do you disable areas that may not be applicable and enable them when needed?
How long does it approximately take to open or save your file?

Any tips would go a long way and be much appreciated.

Also, the odd thing is that it sometimes my template will run quickly without seemingly any reason why. And it seems the longer it's open, the slower it gets. A restart sometimes helps.

 

[IFRs]

I tried Prime 0, A, B, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6...current and found none were worth my time to convert everything from M15 when M15 works for what I need to do and it required major conversion efforts. I have to admit, I skippeed a few releases becasue there is only 24 our sin a day. Plus, with a permanemt license I am not paying for their development.

For dimensional and mechanical properties I use external Mathcad worksheets, used for all my structural calc seets.
In many cases, I use subscripted variables to choose options.
I also use many If then if then if constructs that look like this:

I don't write to go faster but sometimes I disable automatic recalculate when I'm developing or making major changes.
I use "areas" and collapse them when not needed, but I think they still calc

As a test, I closed all instances of Mathcad and double clicked on a tank worksheet.
It took 10 seconds to load Mathcad, open the file and give me a cursor

I'd be happy to review (in total confidence) your file if you want.
If it works sometimes and not others that might point yoou somewhere - does Prime increase its memory footprint over time?

 

[jimmyhutmacher]

I had a hunch you were using Mathcad 15 and I don't blame you, as far as I've heard it's a much faster program. I've unfortunately written the program in Mathcad Prime 8.0. I may take you up on your offer to review my file, but do you have the capability to open/view a Mathcad Prime 8.0 file?

Do you link those external Mathcad dimensional and mechanical property files so that if you change a rafter size, e.g., it updates on the fly?

Just ran a "quick" test and it takes about 2.5 minutes to open my file and 1.5 minutes to save. Since you can't do anything while saving the file, it becomes quite interruptive to your work flow. And I think I know why they haven't added autosave yet, ha.

 

[IFRs]

I'd be happy to get the 30-day evaluation version of Prime 8 and review your worksheet. Who knows - I might even spring for a license if it looks like it would be productive!

 

[jimmyhutmacher]

I had kind of forgotten that I brought this issue up to Mathcad over a year ago and since I haven't heard back on the file I sent them, I'm going to make the assumption that there isn't anything particularly wrong with my file and it's just the way the program currently runs. With this new understanding, I looked into if it'd be possible/feasible to switch/convert back to Mathcad 15 and this appears to be a hard no.

I've been trying out and talking with Blockpad and I've become optimistic. Think I'm going to give it a try. Their first impression is that Blockpad could handle my file without bogging down. I'll keep you updated if you want.

 

[IFRs]

I've tried to import M15 files into Blockpad with not enough sucess to pursue it furher. Maybe you'll have better luck with Prime files! Please keep us posted on your progress...

 

[geesaman.d]

When we converted our major mathcad worksheets from 15 to Prime, things got very slow. We have a number of callouts to Excel data sources too although our calcs have nothing to do with API 650.

One thing you can do is turn off the auto-calculate while you're entering inputs, and then manually calculate when you're ready.

If you're already doing this, then you might reach the conclusion that most of the industry has: PTC destroyed MathCAD when they bought it and made Prime. And they don't care because they are richer and smarter than us. If you go through the effort of converting to another platform, make sure it's not a PTC product, and pray it doesn't get bought by PTC like MathCAD was.

 

[jimmyhutmacher]

Thanks for the input and tip. However, even though that helps, the file is still extremely slow. I also disable areas until I need them.

Did you or are you planning to switch to a different software?

 

[geesaman.d]

We have not planned a switch. We have several dozen programs and migrating them from M15 to Prime series was very unpleasant. Making a bigger jump to another platform is not on the table.

The performance issues for us are generally resolved by turning off the auto-calculation. However I can imagine that piling on more spreadsheets could easily make it worse.

Any chance you're retrieving the spreadsheets from a location where file access performance could be improved? Or maybe test relative vs. absolute file paths to the spreadsheets? Just random ideas.

 

[IFRs]

Can you conver the XLS files to MCD files? Might be easy if they are just tables of data. I'm not sure if it would help but maybe try one?

 

[jimmyhutmacher]

Originally I had an issue where my Documents folder was redirected to the server and for whatever reason (Mathcad support would not say), I would come into work the following morning and my Mathcad file size would be 0kb with the file corrupted and unrecoverable. After that I've had my Mathcad files saved locally, which solved that issue, but there was no increase in performance.

The Excel files I use are embedded into the Mathcad file so they're not separate files. That's definitely something I could try but would be an undertaking in itself.

I'm working on a bid this morning and I'm having trouble getting a drop down menu to even respond when I've had Auto-Calculation disabled the entire time. Had enough of this program I think.

Blockpad conversion going OK. It's much different than Mathcad so you have to rethink ways to complete the same calculations and presentation. They're quite helpful support-wise.