Containerization of Fluent#

Warning

You need a valid Ansys license to follow the steps in this section.

This document provides instructions and guidelines on how to containerize Fluent for efficient and secure deployment and management.

Prerequisites#

  1. A Linux machine with Docker installed.

  2. A valid Ansys license. Your Ansys reseller should have provided you with one.

  3. PyFluent source. You can clone PyFluent or download the zip from here.

Procedure#

1. Set current working directory#

Within the PyFluent source navigate to the docker directory.

2. Copy needed files#

Specify the pre-installed Ansys directory and docker/fluent_<version> directory for the particular Fluent release as a command line arguments and run this script to copy needed files from the Ansys installation directory to the particular Fluent release directory:

python copy_docker_files.py <path to 'ansys_inc' directory> <path to 'docker/fluent_<version>' directory>

  1. Above excluded files are not needed to run typical Fluent workflows.

  2. If you find that some of the excluded files are needed to run your workflows then you can remove those files from the exclusion list.

3. Build the Docker image#

Specify docker/fluent_<version> directory for the particular Fluent release and execute this command to build the Docker image:

sudo docker build -t ansys_inc <path to 'docker/fluent_<version>' directory>

The Docker container configuration needed to build the container image is described in the docker/fluent_<version>/Dockerfile.

Run Docker container using the command line#

When you run the Docker container, you must specify the Ansys license file.

Execute this command to run the Docker container in solver mode:

sudo docker run -it --name ansys-inc -e ANSYSLMD_LICENSE_FILE=<license file or server> ansys_inc 3ddp -gu

Execute this command to run the Docker container in meshing mode:

sudo docker run -it --name ansys-inc -e ANSYSLMD_LICENSE_FILE=<license file or server> ansys_inc 3ddp -gu -meshing

Run Docker container using PyFluent#

Install PyFluent and execute this code to run the Docker container using PyFluent:

import os
import ansys.fluent.core as pyfluent
os.environ["ANSYSLMD_LICENSE_FILE"] = "<license file or server>"
custom_config = {'fluent_image': 'ansys_inc:latest', 'mount_source': f"{os.getcwd()}", 'auto_remove': False}
solver = pyfluent.launch_fluent(container_dict=custom_config)