Generate multiple output files starting from a single “seed” file

Question

Good Morning everybody,

it's sometime I wonder if it is possible to do something close to what I'm gonna describe by means of Matlab:

1. Using an external tool (i.e. Ansys, Abaqus or other software) I engender a "seed" listed (file extension .inp, .db or others) file which will be used as reference for the next steps;

2. Starting from this seed listed file, I would like to get, let's say, 200 similar project files, containing some slight variations compared to the seed: I mean, for instance, simulation time or any other characteristic.

I will give a short example: I'm currently working on Bladed, software perfoming aero-elastic simulation for wind energy applications; Blade gives me, for instance, the chance to generate turbulent wind fields. The seed code would be the one shown below:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" ?>
<BladedProject version="4.2.0.46">
    <BladedData dataFormat="project">
        <![CDATA[
VERSION 4.2.0.46
MULTIBODY    1
CALCULATION 3
OPTIONS 0
PROJNAME    
DATE    
ENGINEER    
NOTES   ""
PASSWORD    
MSTART WINDND
SPMODEL 7
NLAT    31
NVER    45
LATDIM   150
VERDIM   220
LONGLS   340.2
LATLS    42.1482
VERTLS   42.1467
XLV  113.4
YLV  66.3117
ZLV  33.1546
XLW  27.72
YLW  25.228
ZLW  50.4542
LAMBDA1  0
CohScale     340.2
COHDEC   12
SCALE    0
GAMMA    0
YDIML    0
N2  0
YDIMS    0
K1MIN    3
LENGTH   1830
STEP     .2233905
UBAR     3
SEED    3
OUTFILE l:\02_turb_dev\50-1\loads\50-1_D116_Validation_adapted_to_AV07\wind\DLC1-2_Kaimal\s1\3.wnd
DIAM     0
HUBHT    0
TURBHTTYPE   0
TURBBOTTOM   0
GUSTAVT  0
GUSTSPEED    0
TOLERANCE    0
DLONGMIN     0
DLONGMAX     0
Z0MIN    0
Z0MAX    0
MAXITER  14
MAXSEED  100
NFILES   1
UseWindShear     0
UseShearToGust   0
WVMODEL 0
MATCHFILE   ''
SPACING  0
SAMPLEFREQ   0
MEANSPEED    0
ILAT     0
IVERT    0
GUSTMETHOD   0
DLONG    0
ILAT     0
IVERT    0
LONGGUST     0
LATGUST  0
VERTGUST     0
iLONGGUST    0
iLATGUST     0
iVERTGUST    0
PEAKINESS    0
MAXFRAN  0
MEND

0WINDND
        ]]>
    </BladedData>
</BladedProject>

By means of matlab I would like to be able to generate similar project files for different wind speeds and random seeds (UBAR,SEED) and to save these files in a predetermined sub-folder.

Finally, I only would be glad to know if any of you has a clue/advice to give me. Then, it will be my task to find out a proper architecture for coding.

I thank you all in advance for supporting.

Best regards, Francesco

Answer 1

So here are some bits and pieces of an answer, read more about the functions used in the Matlab documentation. The code below is only an example, but you shouldn't have any trouble expanding it. This code will write 5 files with UBAR values 1..5. I'll suppose that, at the start of execution, your current working directory is a suitable place for those 5 files to reside, at least temporarily

for ubar = 1:5  %using the name of the variable as the iteration variable here
    fname = ['bladefile' num2str(ubar) '.txt'] % filenames will be bladefile1.txt etc
    fid = fopen(fname,'w') % open the file for writing, keep the file id for later reference
    fprintf(fid, '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" ?>\n<BladedProject version="4.2.0.46">\n    <BladedData dataFormat="project">\n      <![CDATA[\n')

This fprintf call writes to the output file (using the file id fid); it writes your XML header. Note the embedded \ns which will be turned into new lines in the output file.

    fprintf(fid, 'VERSION 4.2.0.46\n') % note, again, the trailing newline so the next line of output starts on a new line
    ...
    fprintf(fid, 'ubar %i\n', ubar)

This call to fprintf writes the string ubar to the file, then the %i indicates that an integer will be written, and the value of that integer will be taken from the variable ubar.

And so on until the end of the loop

    fclose(fid)
end % and loop around

This should get you started and, if your aim is only to write a set of output files once, is good enough for throwaway use.

If you expect to re-use the code do as you would in any programming language and wrap it up into a function. For example, you could write a function which takes a value for ubar and a value for seed as inputs and writes the file, something like this;

for ubar = 1:5
    for seed = 1:7
        write_inp_file(ubar,seed)
    end
end