Introduction

USER FATAL MESSAGE 1012

USER FATAL MESSAGE 1221
The errors are associated with database space limits and
more commonly with the scratch databases. Presented is a
brief summary of information that will help users avoid these
errors near 90%.
This note is not intended to be a replacement for user
guides and training seminars.

Scratch-1

DATABASES

There are two general databases to be aware of

Scratch is broken into two pieces

Scratch
DBALL/MASTER

LOGICAL which holds temporary matrices (datablocks) generated by

DMAP modules. These temporary matrices will be needed in a
subsequent matrix calculation. They are automatically erased after the
last time they are used.
SCR300 which holds the FORTRAN and C scratch files. Data recovery
modules when the =ALL has been requested can generate large scratch
files in SCR300.

DBALL and MASTER are used for restarts

Scratch-2

DATABASES

There are defaults for the scratch file sizes

There are defaults for DBALL and MASTER

250000 blocks for LOGICAL and 250000 blocks for SCR300

1 BLOCK =1 BUFFSIZE (see KEYWORDS)
These limits are not communicated to the operating system
NASTRAN does not check if there is enough disk space to hold 5000000
blocks of information
250000 blocks for DBALL and 5000 blocks for MASTER
1 BLOCK =1 BUFFSIZE (see KEYWORDS)
These limits are not communicated to the operating system
NASTRAN does not check if there is enough disk space to hold 250000
blocks of DBALL information and 5000 blocks of MASTER information

The .f04 contains important information on all these files

Location, BUFFSIZE, maximum size,

Scratch-3

Keywords

There are several NASTRAN command line keywords

that can be used to easily expand the databases:

BUFFSIZE where the default is 8193 and the maximum is 65537

z

The value supplied is rounded up or down to fit this equation:

BUFFSIZE = n * (1024 ) + 1
z
z

Applies to ALL the databases

Example for MASTER

BUFFSIZE

MASTER (bytes)

4097

3309568

8193

5668864

16385

10289152

32769

38797312

Scratch-4

Keywords

SSCR will set the maximum internal limit for all scratch
z
z
z

SDBALL will set the maximum internal limit for DBALL

z
z
z
z

Does not apply to MASTER

Examples: SDBALL=40GB
NASTRAN does not check if this space is available on the physical disk
Your system limits apply to the max value assigned by SDBALL

SDIR specifies where the scratch files are written

z
z

Examples: SSCR=64GB
NASTRAN does not check if this space is available on the physical disk
Your system limits apply to the max value assigned by SSCR

ALL scratch files go to this location

Only the FMS ASSIGN statement can redirect scratch files to multiple
directories

DBS specifies where the MASTER/DBALL files are written

z
z

ALL MASTER/DBALL files go to this location

Only the FMS ASSIGN statement can redirect MASTER/DBALL files to
multiple directories

Scratch-5

System Cells

System cells are set in the file or in the Run

Configuration file

BUFFSIZE is also a system cell

NASTRAN SYSTEM(151)=1
z

Allows the SCR300 part of scratch to write into the LOGICAL section

Keywords can also be set in the Run Configuration file

Run Configuration file names (xxx is the numerical version of NASTRAN)

z
z

Located in the conf directory

z

nastxxxrc - unix
nastxxx.rcf - Windows
Look in the .log file for the location of the Run Configuration file

Local Run Configuration file in your login directory overides conf

z .nastxxxrc
- unix (Note filename begins with a period!)
z

nastxxx.rcf - Windows

Scratch-6

FMS

The brute force method

INIT statement for initializing the internal logical file
names
ASSIGN to associate the internal logical names to
the physical file names on the disk drives
Only method for using multiple directories for scratch
Avoid placing any database file or scratch file on an
NFS mounted file system

I/O time will cause wallclock times to climb to painful levels

Scratch-7

FMS - INIT

INIT statement

Scratch-8

FMS - INIT

INIT statement - keywords

DBSET-name the Logical or internal Nastran database name that is

being defined
LOGICAL the physical filename that DBSET-name is associated with
Max-size defines the maximum size of the file
z

This size is an internal NASTRAN limit and is not communicated to the

operating system nor is a check made to verify the file size will fit on the disk
pack

For user convenience the

user can use one of the
following keywords when
setting max-size

Scratch-9

FMS - INIT

INIT statement DBALL example

INIT DBALL LOGICAL=(DB1(2GB),DB2(2GB),DB3(2GB),DB4(2GB))

This example breaks up the DBALL database into 2GB portions: DB1, DB2, DB3
and DB4. When the 2GB maximum file limit was common for unix operating
systems, this was how large DBALL databases had to be specified.

Scratch-10

FMS - INIT

INIT statement LOGICAL scratch example

INIT SCRATCH LOGICAL=(LOG1(5GB),LOG2(5GB),LOG3(5GB),LOG4(5GB),

LOG5(5GB),LOG6(5GB))

This is another example of breaking up a file, SCRATCH, to overcome a system

limits. In this case the ASSIGN statement would then associate these individual
log-name (LOG1, LOG2,) to physical files. These files would likely reside on
individual directories or disk drives that have enough space to accommodate a
5 GB sized file. The end purpose is to avoid filling the directories or drives thus
causing a system error, stopping NASTRAN.

Scratch-11

FMS - ASSIGN

Scratch-12

FMS - ASSIGN

logical-key internal MSC.NASTRAN filename

filename2 external system filename

Pathnames are accepted and recommended

Case sensitive for unix files is preserved
Spaces in filenames or directory names are not recommended

Status FORTRAN status

A list of these can be found in the Quick Reference Guide

DBALL and MASTER are logical-key (but not listed in the QRG)

Relevant to OUTPUT2 /INPUTT2 or OUTPUT4/INPUTT4 pairs

Unit=u

FORTRAN unit number associated with the filename

Relevant to OUTPUT2 /INPUTT2 or OUTPUT4/INPUTT4 pairs

Scratch-13

FMS - ASSIGN

TEMP

DELETE

If this is present on the ASSIGN statement the filename2 will be

deleted at the conclusion of the run
If this is present on the ASSIGN statement the filename2 will be
deleted at the start of the run

FORM ASCII or binary format selection (limited

application)

Formatted does not mean ASCII readable for binary files

Formatted is a special encoded ASCII file that is platform
independent
The rcout2 utility returns the file to the binary format

Scratch-14

FMS - ASSIGN
Examples:

ASSIGN DBALL=run1.DB
ASSIGN MASTER=run1.M
This will override the default file names run1.DBALL and run1.MASTER.
This is useful when filename and path become excessively long.

Scratch-15

Additional Information

Solution 4893

Section 2 of the Quick Reference Guide

TECHNIQUES FOR SOLVING LARGE MODELS WITH

MSC/NASTRAN
FMS statement descriptions

Read the Installation and Operations Guide. We

allow anyone to download the PDF version of this
guide:

http://www.mscsoftware.com/support/prod_support/nastran/

Scratch-16