This article provides step-by-step instruction on installing CalculiX 2.17 binary executables on a personal computer running on Ubuntu 21.04. The binary executables here refers to the two (2) pre-compiled files, namely, CCX (the solver) and CGX (the pre/post tool). These pre-compiled executables are sufficient for most of us who want to explore CalculiX — i.e. without the hassle of compiling from the source package.
The instructions given are for a Ubuntu 21.04 system, but it should also work for Ubuntu 20.04 and other Ubuntu-compatible distributions with Pop!_OS inclusive.
Preparation
1: Install the Open MPI package (and its dependencies) if not yet installed. Open MPI is an open source Message Passing Interface developed for high-performance computing.
$ sudo apt install openmpi-bin (1)
| 1 | The prompt symbol $ indicates that you are typing at a terminal emulator (e.g. Ubuntu Terminal). |
Check the installation by the accessibility to its mpiexec (or mpirun) executable:
$ which mpiexec
/usr/bin/mpiexec
2: CalculiX CCX requires the 'libgfortran.so.4' library from the libgfortran4 package. To install libgfortran4, enter from a terminal as root (i.e. using the sudo command):
$ sudo apt install libgfortran4
You may check where the 'libgfortran.so.4' file sits and how it is linked.
$ sudo find /usr/ -iname libgfortran.so.4*
/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgfortran.so.4.0.0 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgfortran.so.4
$ ll /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgfortran.so.4*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 20 Nov 26 2020 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgfortran.so.4 -> libgfortran.so.4.0.0 -rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1964056 Nov 26 2020 /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libgfortran.so.4.0.0
CGX and CCX executables
Check the latest versions of CalculiX CGX and CCX executables from http://www.dhondt.de/.
Prepare a dedicated package folder for CalculiX under your HOME directory (e.g. '~/CalculiX/'), and then open a terminal from there.
$ cd ~/CalculiX/
Download the CGX executable using wget:
$ wget http://www.dhondt.de/cgx_2.17.1.bz2
--2021-07-25 18:52:00-- http://www.dhondt.de/cgx_2.17.1.bz2 Resolving www.dhondt.de (www.dhondt.de)... 81.169.145.94, 2a01:238:20a:202:1094:: Connecting to www.dhondt.de (www.dhondt.de)|81.169.145.94|:80... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK Length: 1185224 (1.1M) [application/x-bzip2] Saving to: ‘cgx_2.17.1.bz2’ cgx_2.17.1.bz2 100%[==============================================>] 1.13M 330KB/s in 3.5s 2021-07-25 18:52:05 (330 KB/s) - ‘cgx_2.17.1.bz2’ saved [1185224/1185224
Likewise, download the CCX executable:
$ wget http://www.dhondt.de/ccx_2.17.tar.bz2
--2021-07-25 18:53:14-- http://www.dhondt.de/ccx_2.17.tar.bz2 Resolving www.dhondt.de (www.dhondt.de)... 81.169.145.94, 2a01:238:20a:202:1094:: Connecting to www.dhondt.de (www.dhondt.de)|81.169.145.94|:80... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK Length: 2510094 (2.4M) [application/x-bzip2] Saving to: ‘ccx_2.17.tar.bz2’ ccx_2.17.tar.bz2 100%[==============================================>] 2.39M 422KB/s in 5.8s 2021-07-25 18:53:20 (422 KB/s) - ‘ccx_2.17.tar.bz2’ saved [2510094/2510094]
Unzip the compressed files accordingly:
$ bunzip2 cgx_2.17.1.bz2
-
This will turn the 'cgx_2.17.1.bz2' file into 'cgx_2.17.1' in the current work folder.
$ tar -xvjf ccx_2.17.tar.bz2 -C ~
-
This will extract the 'ccx_2.17' file and put it under the 'ccx_2.17/src/' folder.
Now, assign the executable permission to the to extracted files, and then move them to the '/usr/local/bin/' directory.
$ chmod +x cgx_2.17.1 $ chmod +x ccx_2.17/src/ccx_2.17 $ sudo mv ~/CalculiX/cgx_2.17.1 /usr/local/bin/ $ sudo mv ~/CalculiX/ccx_2.17/src/ccx_2.17 /usr/local/bin/
Also, let us create symbolic links to the two (2) respective "version-numbered" executables so that we can launch them with and without the release number tags:
$ sudo ln -s /usr/local/bin/cgx_2.17.1 /usr/local/bin/cgx $ sudo ln -s /usr/local/bin/ccx_2.17 /usr/local/bin/ccx
Double-check if the two (2) executables are accessible:
$ which cgx
/usr/local/bin/cgx
$ which ccx
/usr/local/bin/ccx
You may now delete the compressed files if you wish.
$ rm *.bz2
CalculiX documents and examples
In this section, we will be downloading the documents and example files directly from the local package folder (as we did in the previous steps):
$ cd ~/CalculiX/
Get the compressed documentation and example files for CGX and CCX, one at a time:
$ wget http://www.dhondt.de/cgx_2.17.1.htm.tar.bz2 $ wget http://www.dhondt.de/cgx_2.17.1.exa.tar.bz2 $ wget http://www.dhondt.de/ccx_2.17.htm.tar.bz2 $ wget http://www.dhondt.de/ccx_2.17.test.tar.bz2
Unzip the compressed files accordingly:
$ tar -xvjf cgx_2.17.1.htm.tar.bz2 -C ~ (1) $ tar -xvjf cgx_2.17.1.exa.tar.bz2 -C ~ $ tar -xvjf ccx_2.17.htm.tar.bz2 -C ~ $ tar -xvjf ccx_2.17.test.tar.bz2 -C ~
| 1 | If you have not moved (nor deleted) the 'cgx_2.17.1' file, it will hinder tar from extracting the content in the 'cgx_2.17.1' directory (because a file of the same name will mislead it). Creating the folder explicitly (i.e. mkdir cgx_2.17.1) in prior will alleviate the issue. |
Have a look at the directory structure — either using Files browser or using tree (To use the tree command, install it by sudo apt install tree).
$ tree . -d -L 2
.
├── ccx_2.17
│ ├── doc
│ ├── src
│ └── test
└── cgx_2.17.1
├── doc
└── examples
7 directories
You may delete the compressed files if you wish.
$ rm *.bz2
Testing CalculiX
What follows are basic test routines for checking CalculiX installation.
Test routine 1
Open a terminal, copy and paste the whole command block to the terminal window:
mkdir -p ~/temp/test/calculix/
cd ~/temp/test/calculix
cp ~/CalculiX/ccx_2.17/test/beamp.inp .
ccx beamp | tee beamp.log
(1)| 1 | An extra blank line is intended for the last command line to be parsed on pasting. |
: STEP 1 Static analysis was selected Decascading the MPC's Determining the structure of the matrix: number of equations 720 number of nonzero lower triangular matrix elements 37458 Using up to 1 cpu(s) for the stress calculation. Using up to 1 cpu(s) for the symmetric stiffness/mass contributions. Factoring the system of equations using the symmetric spooles solver Using up to 1 cpu(s) for the stress calculation. Job finished ________________________________________ Total CalculiX Time: 0.031531 ________________________________________
To view the result using CGX, enter:
$ cgx -v beamp.frd
-
Press and hold the left mouse button from anywhere outside the boxed area to open the CCX context menu.
-
With the left mouse button still pressed, move the cursor to select
Datasets → 1 DISP 1.000000, and then release the mouse button. -
Activate the CCX context menu again to select this time
Datasets → -Entity- → 4 ALL. -
Try rotating the view by using the left mouse button from inside the boxed graphics area.
-
Open the CCX context menu to select
Hardcopy → Png-hardcopy, and then release the mouse button. Check the resulted image. -
To terminate the session, open the CCX context menu to select
-QUIT-at the bottom.
Test routine 2
Below is for testing a parallel run. Change the value for the OMP_NUM_THREADS parameter if you have less than four (4) threads available.
mkdir -p ~/temp/test/calculix/
cp ~/CalculiX/ccx_2.17/test/hueeber1.inp .
export OMP_NUM_THREADS=4
ccx hueeber1 | tee hueeber1.log
(1)| 1 | An extra blank line is intended for the last command line to be parsed on pasting. |
: iteration 14 Number of contact spring elements=684 Using up to 4 cpu(s) for the stress calculation. Using up to 4 cpu(s) for the symmetric stiffness/mass contributions. Factoring the system of equations using the symmetric spooles solver Using up to 4 cpu(s) for the stress calculation. line search factor=0.819112 Using up to 4 cpu(s) for the stress calculation. average force= 0.009631 time avg. forc= 0.009631 largest residual force= 0.000000 in node 17442 and dof 2 largest increment of disp= 8.377836e-07 largest correction to disp= 1.486631e-18 in node 112 and dof 2 convergence the increment size exceeds the remainder of the step and is decreased to 0.000000e+00 nonlingeo iinc=1 pressure ratio (smallest/largest pressure over all contact areas) =0.000000e+00 Using up to 4 cpu(s) for the stress calculation. Job finished ________________________________________ Total CalculiX Time: 6.647776 ________________________________________
This run didn’t produce any graphical output (because none was set in the input deck). Check the printed result instead:
$ gedit hueeber1.dat
