Initial setup for launching a Mechanical session on the local machine

To run, PyMechanical must know the location of your Mechanical installation. Most of the time, PyMechanical can determine this location automatically. However, if you have a non-standard installation, you must provide this location.

To test and set up your installation of PyMechanical, run the launch_mechanical() method:

from ansys.mechanical.core import launch_mechanical

mechanical = launch_mechanical()

The first time that you run this method, PyMechanical attempts to detect the location of your Mechanical installation based on environment variables. If it cannot find a Mechanical installation, PyMechanical asks you to supply the location of the Mechanical executable file.

On Linux

Enter location of Mechanical executable: /usr/ansys_inc/v231/aisol/.workbench

On Windows

Enter location of Mechanical executable: C:/Program Files/ANSYS Inc/v231/aisol/bin/winx64/AnsysWBU.exe

The settings file for Mechanical is stored locally. You do not need to enter the path again. If you must change the path, perhaps to change the default version of Mechanical, run the following:

from ansys.mechanical import core as pymechanical

new_path = "C:/Program Files/ANSYS Inc/v231/aisol/bin/winx64/AnsysWBU.exe"
pymechanical.change_default_mechanical_path(new_path)

For more information, see the change_default_mechanical_path() and find_mechanical() methods.

Additionally, you can use the exec_file keyword argument to specify the location of the Mechanical executable file.

On Linux

from ansys.mechanical.core import launch_mechanical

mechanical = launch_mechanical(exec_file="/usr/ansys_inc/v231/aisol/.workbench")

On Windows

from ansys.mechanical.core import launch_mechanical

mechanical = launch_mechanical(
    exec_file="C:\\Program File\\ANSYS Inc\\v231\\aisol\\bin\\winx64\\AnsysWBU.exe"
)

You can use the additional_switches keyword argument to specify additional arguments.

from ansys.mechanical.core import launch_mechanical

custom_exec = "/usr/ansys_inc/v231/aisol/.workbench"
add_switch = f"-featureflags mechanical.material.import;"
mechanical = launch_mechanical(additional_switches=add_switch)

API reference

For more information on controlling how Mechanical launches locally, see the launch_mechanical() method.