Fluent Meshing changes working directory after geometry import

Alexandre G.

Hello everyone,

I am facing an interesting issue in Fluent Meshing 2024R1 standalone for CFD purpose. I use it on Windows and Linux (HPC) os, thus I launch Fluent in batch mode and I feed it with a journal that contains TUI commands.

In the batch script, I define the directory that contains the batch script AND the journal as the working directory. However, when I import the geometry prior meshing, which is a CAD file located in a different directory, the WD changes. My problem is that I know the absolute path for geometry_directory but I do not know the absolute path to the simulation_directory in general, and I may have many of them.

I describe the tree structure and my files below:

Root
├── simulation_directory
│   └── journal.jou
│   └── batch_script.sh
├── geometry_directory
│   └── geo_file.pmdb

Batch script:

module load fluent/24.1
cd $SLURM_SUBMIT_DIR
# Run application
fluent 3ddp -t$SLURM_NTASKS -g -cnf=hostsfile_job_$SLURM_JOBID.txt -i journal.jou
 -meshing

Journal:

;; Here WD = Root/simulation_directory
(%py-exec “"workflow.TaskObject['Import Geometry'].Arguments.set_state({r'FileName': r'/Root/geometry_directory_geo_file.pmdb',r'ImportCadPreferences': {r'MaxFacetLength': 0,},r'LengthUnit': r'mm',})")
(%py-exec "workflow.TaskObject['Import Geometry'].Execute()")
(newline)
;; Now WD = Root/geometry_directory

I tried several things, they did not work, and I could only find workarounds that imply the absolute path of the simulation folder, which I do not want. If someone has a fix for preventing Fluent from changing the WD, I would take it with pleasure.

Best,
Alexandre G.

Alexandre G.

I think I found a workaround. The idea is to store the path to the working directory as a string before importing the geometry, as follows:

(define wd (tgapi-util-get-mesher-working-directory))

;; Import geometryheer and the working directory is automatically changed.

(chdir (format #f "~a" wd))

If someone has a better idea, or more elegant, may they post it here.

Thanks,
Alexandre G.