PRIMER 22.1

Keyword Promotion Explicit per Keyword Promotion to I10 and Large Formats Using the "%" and "+" Suffices

From version 18.0 PRIMER offers an alternative way of using the "%" (for I10) and "+" (for Large) suffices on keywords. This has been added at the request of users who want to use Small format, but to have all *keywords with 8 wide fields within these files always promoted to I10 format by adding the "%" suffix, even if the data does not require it.

This promotion is independent of the Small / I10 / Large / Automatic / Keep original output methods, and there is some overlap with the functionality of the Automatic and Keep original methods which is discussed further below.

The options are

No promotion	Not active
->I10 if needed	Keywords in Small format which contain 8 wide data fields will be promoted to I10 format using "%" only if* any data for that *keyword within that file overflows those fields.
->I10 always	Keywords in Small format which contain 8 wide data fields will always* be promoted to I10 format using "%", even if no data overflows are detected.
->I10 / Large if needed	Keywords in any format within a file will be promoted as necessary to I10 (using "%") or Large (using "+") formats as required only if* any data fields overflow.

List of keywords affected by ->I10 promotion

Promotion to I10 format is only relevant if the existing format is Small, and it only affects keywords which have 8 wide data fields. At the time of writing (August 2020) the affected keywords are shown in the following table. Some keywords have multiple lines of data with varying format widths, only the formats of lines containing 8 wide fields are shown below.

*Keyword	Original small format	Promoted format
AIRBAG_REFERENCE_GEOMETRY AIRBAG_SHELL_REFERENCE_GEOMETRY	I8, 3E16 6I8	I10,3E16 6I10
*BOUNDARY_PRESCRIBED_FINAL_GEOMETRY	I8,3E16,I8,E16	I10,3E16,I10,E16
*CONSTRAINED_POINTS	I8, 3E16	I10,3E16
*CONTROL_SOLID	10I8	10I10
ELEMENT_BEAM ELEMENT_DISCRETE ELEMENT_INERTIA ELEMENT_MASS ELEMENT_MASS_PART ELEMENT_PLOTEL ELEMENT_SEATBELT ELEMENT_SHELL ELEMENT_SOLID ELEMENT_SPH *ELEMENT_TSHELL	10I8 5I8,E16,I8,E16 3I8 2I8,E16,I8 I8,3E16,I8 3I8 5I8,E16,2I8 10I8 10I8 2I8,E16,I8 10I8	10I10 5I10,E16,I10,E16 3I10 2I10,E16,I10 I10,3E16,I10 3I10 5I10,E16,2I10 10I10 10I10 2I10,E16,I10 10I10
*INITIAL_FOAM_REFERENCE_GEOMETRY	I8,3E16	I10,3E16
*LOAD_SEISMIC_SSI	I8,3E16,3I8	I10,3e16,3I10
*NODE	I8,3E16,2I8	I10,3E16,2I10
*PART_MOVE	I8,3E16,2I8	I10,3E16,2I10
MESH_NODE} MESH_SURFACE_NODE} MESH_VOLUME_NODE} MESH_SURFACE_ELEMENT *MESH_VOLUME_ELEMENT	I8,3E16 6I8 6I8	I10,3E16 6I10 6I10

Discussion on the pros and cons of using this option

The "->I10 always" option is what was originally requested, the other options have been added because they require no extra coding effort and may be useful in some cases. It will be evident that these options overlap with the "Automatic" output format option and can achieve much the same effect via a different route. It doesn't really matter which you use, but you should be aware of the following consequences of using this Explicit promotion scheme.

Explicit promotion to "->I10 if needed" or "->I10 always" effectively means that the smallest label that can be used in a Small format deck is now 9,999,999,999. It also means that parameters can always be 9 wide, and character labels 10 wide.

This affects how PRIMER calculates whether or not a model will fit into Small format because, in effect, it means that Small format can always contain I10 format data. The label checks prior to output take this into consideration and will not report data that would "overflow Small but fit in I10".
Explicit promotion to "->10 / Large if needed" means that any keyword can be promoted to Large format, rendering all label range checks pointless. If you choose this option you effectively turn off label range checking prior to output.

Users of I10 format should also consider whether they can use labels up to the full 9,999,999,999 limit or whether they should restrict themselves to the signed 32 bit integer limit of 2,147,483,647. This issue is considered in more detail in "Long" keyword format and "large" labels.

In addition users should be aware that setting one of the promotion options above may have the effect of hiding the fact that labels outside the expected range are being used. This is normally picked up either during Model Check or during PRIMER's standard pre-output checks, but using the promotion options here effectively "raises the floor" at which label overflows are detected. This probably won't matter for Ansys LS-DYNA, but if keyout files are to be read and processed by other software this will need to be able to "understand" these per-keyword promoted formats.

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