BINOUT (LSDA) File

BINOUT (LSDA) file

Usually just " binout "

This is a file generated by Ansys LS-DYNA which contains the "time-history" information normally written to ASCII database files via the *DATABASE_ABSTAT etc keywords, but in binary form. It is created if the < binary > flag on the relevant card is set.

Only data of the specified types (eg ABSTAT for airbag data) is output.

D3PLOT 9.4 onwards reads this file and extracts the subset of its data that it can process, at present limited to:

• SPC results
• Spring and damper forces and moments
• Seatbelt and related element results
• Spotweld results
• *DATABASE_CROSS_SECTION results

Since the binout file contains only results, and not geometry information, D3PLOT also requires a ZTF file from PRIMER to specify the topology and geometry of these items, and without a ZTF file the binout file cannot be processed.

Binout files can be extremely large, and scanning their contents can take a significant amount of time - sometimes several minutes. In order not to slow down the opening of model databases with such files D3PLOT opens and scans the binout file in a separate thread (effectively in parallel), and results from the binout file only become available when that thread has finished its scan.

NOTE :

As the output frequency of data to each branch of the binout file can be different to the PTF output frequency the outout times might not match exactly. For each PTF state D3PLOT will automatically select the time state in the binout file that is closest to the PTF state time. If the difference betwen the closest binout data is more than 10% of the PTF state interval D3PLOT will generate a warning message.