The Constraints Tab    

Creating a Constraint

  • To create a constraint, click New... (The editor displayed is familiar to those of you who use the Knowledge Advisor product.)

  • To create a constraint with derivatives, click New Cst With Derivatives.

  • To delete a constraint, click Delete.

Constraints cannot be regrouped. You must enter each constraint one by one. The only operators that you can use when specifying constraints are:

  • == (Simulated Annealing and Algorithm for Constraints and Derivatives Providers)

  • <, >  (All algorithms accepting constraints).  

When a constraint has been specified, its gap with respect to the value specified in the constraint is displayed. An icon indicates whether the initial value fulfills the constraint.

An additional column now lists the weight assigned to each constraint. You can modify the weight in this column.
 

Creating a Constraint Supporting Derivatives  
To create a constraint with derivatives:

  1. Click New (derivatives provider) (see picture opposite).

  2. Select the Constraint in the Constraints list and use the lower part of the window to assign it a formula.

  3. Click OK when done.
Constraints supporting derivatives are dedicated to special analysis sensors (see the analysis documentation.) It must be noted that each constraint can be applied to a local sensor that holds several output values (1 for each node of the mesh in the area of the local sensor). Hence the value returned by the constraint and compared to its bound to determine the satisfaction depends on the Type of the Constraint (see graphic opposite).
If the type is "greater than", the value considered is the smallest value returned by the local sensor. 
If the type is "smaller than" the value considered is the largest returned by the local sensor.

A constraint can be made active (True) or inactive (False) by using the Activity  field. A deactivated constraint is ignored by the optimization algorithm.

 

Editing a Constraint Body

Click Edit... to access the Optimization Constraints Editor to modify the constraint body. Note that this Editor is similar to the Formula Editor.

It is now possible to modify constraints weights by using the Weight field. To do so, select the constraint in the list and enter a new weight in the Weight field.

Using Precisions

All constraints support precisions.