Assessing Log Files

Assessing the log files helps to determine if the work flow has been successfully completed.

  • Assists in determining proper success criteria and understanding for expected vs. realistic performance
  • Provides for fixed goal posts for performance comparison
  • Expectations and success criteria can be measured
  • Helps in determining the appropriate version and software settings used

process_output.log

process_output.log is a file with terminal output written. During the simulations this file, allows you to look into the terminal outputs.

  • process_output.log file will write out important information like:
    • Software versions,
    • Licenses checkout information
    • Modeling and software parameters used
    • (optional) Results and iterations
  • For example, the following link takes you to an ANSYS Fluent tutorial from which you can view the process_output.log file of an ANSYS Fluent simulation

Software based .log files

  • These .log files are generated by the software and is very specific to the software.
  • Generally, the software based logs files provide more details of the simulation than terminal output based process_output.log
  • We advice to look at both the log files to assess the performance and success
  • For example, LS-DYNA write a ls-dyna.log file which provides more details of the simulation, while the process_output.log files provides a summary of the simulation.