STEP TAS adapter

On GitHub

This section provides basic materials for use by CDF Domain Experts.

This Software User Manual is a deliverable in the frame of the Digital Engineering Hub Pathfinder (DEHP) and is part of the Design Definition File (DDF) package. The document outlines the software user manual of the IECSS-E-ST-31-04 (STEP-TAS) DST Adapter.

Overview

In the framework of the Digital Engineering Hub Pathfinder activity domain specific tool (DST) adapters for ten applications and file formats will have to be designed and implemented. Each produced implementation comes with instructions as to its functionalities, which this document describes.

PURPOSE OF THE SOFTWARE

The DST STEP-TAS Adapter was developed in order to demonstrate linking capabilities between an ESATAN model and an engineering model that is shared using COMET Webservices. With this software, you will be able to associate/map geometrical entities (with their related computational node id) stored in a STEP-TAS file to some entities (Element Definition / Element Usage) of an engineering model that is shared using COMET Webservices. With this knowledge, the adapter will be able to generate input file for ESATAN that will contain loadings (i.e. dissipation budget) defined on Element Usage / Element Definition on the Hub. Once the computation is performed by ESATAN and output files are generated (temperatures at nodes in CSV files), these results can be post-process (mean, max, min, resampling, …) and uploaded to the hub at the level of associated Element Definition / Element Usage. Finally, note that it is possible to retrieve directly STEP-TAS file from the Domain File Store of the engineering model that will allow multiple thermal analysts to share mapping information.

EXTERNAL VIEW OF THE SOFTWARE

The application is provided in a ZIP file including the runtime libraries required. For more information, please refer to Section 2.2. Several STEP-TAS model files were also included in the ZIP file. The ECSS-E-TM-10-25 data source must be provided by your organization according to the model to interact with. Finally, for demonstration purpose without access to ESATAN-TMS software, a set of CSV files (results from ESATAN computations) are also delivered in the ZIP file.

General

The STEP-TAS adapter is stand-alone application, so no installation of the software itself is required. It is sufficient to run the executable “DEHPSTEPTAS.exe” to get the adapter running. The software runs on Microsoft Windows 64-bit platform.

Hardware Configuration

The minimum hardware configuration is the following.

  • 1 GHz or faster processor
  • 1 GB of RAM
  • 150 MB of available hard disk space + cache space of STEP-TAS files (model dependent)
  • A display with a minimum resolution of 1280 pixels by 768 pixels

Software Configuration

Supported Operating System

The STEP-AP242 adapter is targeting .Net 4.7.2. Therefore, it is compatible with the following platform:

  • Windows 7 SP1 (x64)
  • Windows 8.1 (x64)
  • Windows 10 Anniversary Update (x64)
  • Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 (x64)
  • Windows Server 2012 (x64)
  • Windows Server 2012 R2 (x64)
  • Windows Server 2016 (x64)

It requires a 64-bit system.

Runtime

The STEP-TAS adapter requires that the Microsoft .NET Framework 4.7.2 is installed in order to run. Which is usually the case by default if you are running an up-to-date version of Windows 10. The STEP-TAS adapter includes libraries created on C++ Visual Studio 2019, therefore the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2019 (provided in the package) must be installed.

Operational Constraints

Start-up

When the adapter starts, you can connect to an E-TM-10-25 model. Once this is done, you should be able to browse the Element Definition tree. You can open a local STEP-TAS file to inspect the HLR without connection to the E-TM-10-25 model, but the default mapping will not be available until the connection to the model is established.

Transfer and Mapping

The STEP-TAS adapter lets you transfer/map STEP entities information (name, path, StepTas ID, description, …) from a STEP-TAS file to an E-TM-10-25 model.

Impact view

The described functionalities in 1.4.2 register themselves in a process where once you have defined what STEP-TAS part to transfer to what destination, you have the possibility to preview the impact on the target model.

Then you can transfer your mapped parts to their configured destination. By default, all the mapped data will be transferred. Alternatively, you can select or deselect items you want transfer in the impact view.

Transfer

When you choose to transfer, the mapped values are then transferred to the configured target model. In the case anything goes wrong at this stage, you can cancel, and it will delete every configured mapping.

Saved Mapping Configuration

When a transfer has been done, the mapping configuration is saved in the open E-TM-10-25 Iteration. This saved mapping configuration is applied each time you map one thing that have been mapped already. This mapping is available to any user of the adaptor and can be overridden.

Operations Basics

From the moment the adapter has started, you can

  • Connect to a E-TM-10-25 data source.
  • Load a local STEP-TAS file.
  • Map some parts from to the connected E-TM-10-25 Element Definition or Element Usage through the step tas reference compound parameter.
  • Preview the net change (from HLR point of view from a local STEP-TAS file and another one on the HUB).
  • Transfer the mapped parts.
  • Download existing STEPTAS files from E-TM-10-25 data source.
  • Generate additional input files for ESATAN-TMS computation from properties (i.e. mean consumed power) associated to Element Definition and/or Element Usage linked to STEPTAS entities during the mapping process.
  • Upload temperature results from CSV files generated by ESATAN-TMS computation to E-TM-10-25 data source.

Terms and Abbreviations

Below, you will find the most important terms and abbreviations of the current document

  • CDP4: Concurrent Design Platform 4 compliant with ECSS-E-TM-10-25 Annex A and Annex C.
  • COMET-CE: Concurrent Design Platform 4 Integrated Modelling Environment (Community Edition)
  • GUI: Graphical User Interface
  • HLR: High Level Representation (of the STEP-TAS file)

Table of contents