Integration of tochnog solver in FreeCAD FEM

[Dennis]

Hi,

I connected the solver 'Tochnog Professional' to Freecad. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLyowfy3N7Y for a simple test (or search in YouTube for 'Tochnog Professional Freecad'). The video shows how to replace the Calculix executable with Tochnog.

Please realise the following:
- Tochnog Professional is commercial (dongle locked)
- As trial it can be used freely up to 100 elements with all available options (plasticity laws, groundwater flow, etc).
- For the trial version no dongle is needed
- To skip license checking (which takes time) use 'tochnog_trial -yes' in the Tochnog input file (eg in tochnog.dat) !
- Take care that the tochnog executable in the src directory of the distribution can be found by your operating system (adjust the PATH environment symbol, or put the executable somewhere where the OS can find it)
- Tochnog runs on Linux and MS Windows, both on 32 bit and 64 bit
- You can download from http://www.feat.nl
- Tochnog is mostly used in geotechnics (things in the soil: landslides, driving piles, slope stability, etc.) or civil engineering (masonry, earthquake response, etc).
- Tochnog reads the abaqus inp file (anyway most of the bulk data like elements, nodes, etc; so not complete inp files)
- Tochnog writes at output a frd file.
- Reading the inp file and writing the frd file allows easy replacing Calculix by Tochnog (see the video)
- All other options and background theory can be found in the Users manual.

Dennis

[bernd]

nice to see it supported.

BTW max displacement of the example beam should be 87 mm not 174 mm ...

[thschrader]

BTW max displacement of the example beam should be 87 mm not 174 mm ...

...and the solver needs 23 sec to calculate instead of 1 sec.

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[thschrader]

Seems to be a commercial site.
https://www.feat.nl
I downloaded the solver and did a run with the beam-example,
but I got an error.

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[Dennis]

bernd: thanks, I missed that. Still found an error in conversion of the inp file, I will correct.

thschrader time_current=1: that is the end time in the calculation (not the cpu time).

thschrader error on running: the trial is limited to 100 elements, so that's why you get the error, I still need find a better way in freecad to catch that error, and give a clear message. Any idea?

thschrader commercial: yes it is commercial (like you see when you download directly above the download, and other license info on our side). But since it has some other options (material laws etc), it still may be of interest to people using up to 100 elements. I will adjust that I my first post above, to prevent people not interested in that from looking further.

thanks, other ideas welcome.

[thschrader]

thschrader error on running: the trial is limited to 100 elements, so that's why you get the error, I still need find a better way in freecad to catch that error, and give a clear message. Any idea?

No Sir, I have no idea.
In the startup.pdf of the unpacked tochnog.zip is the info, that you need a dongle
to activate the program. Maybe there is an additional ccx on the dongle
(or something like a key) which runs better. They take a bunch of freeware-products
an sell it as a commercial solution...
regards Thomas

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[Dennis]

@thschrader:

> In the startup.pdf of the unpacked tochnog.zip is the info, that you need a dongle
> to activate the program.
Correct, if you want to use more than 100 elements. Up to 100 elements no dongle is needed.

>Maybe there is an additional ccx on the dongle(or something like a key) which runs better.
No. Like I say above: up to 100 elements the executable can be directly used.

> They take a bunch of freeware-products an sell it as a commercial solution..
?? We don't sell freeware products. Why do you say that?
If someone wants to use up to 100 elements for free, please do. If not interested, please don't. I clarified the first post. At some uni's they use the Tochnog trial with some specific options (up to 100 elements), maybe nice if they can do it i.c.w Freecad.

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@Bernd:

If you find this post is not ok (thschrader seems to think so), please feel free to delete it.

The error in reading the inp file is corrected, thanks again

[saso]

If you find this post is not ok (thschrader seems to think so), please feel free to delete it.

Of course it is ok and thanks for letting us know about it, people here however most of the time strongly prefer and support opensource and cross platform solutions

[Dennis]

@saso

> Of course it is ok and thanks for letting us know about it, people here however most of the time strongly prefer and support opensource and cross platform solutions

Thanks. Yes, of course nice to use opensource. We have made much gpl source available. But making a living is also nice, so this 'tochnog' version is commercial (but still a 100 element free version may be nice for students trying 'strange' materials laws and so).

Many free- and non-free programs available these days. And they use each other and interface with each other. Not a problem in that I think.

Greetings, Dennis

[bernd]

@Bernd:

If you find this post is not ok (thschrader seems to think so), please feel free to delete it.

I'm fine with this. I changed the topic title in your first post to clarify what is this topic about. It would have been helpful if you would have been introduce the technog solver in your first post, Licence, OS on which the runs at. Where to get the solver from? How is the integration done? As far as I can tell by converting the inp file, or does technog uses Abaqus inp as well? ETC. You can still do by Editing the first post and add an EDIT inside.

cheers bernd

added it to the solver supported. https://forum.freecadweb.org/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=26326