Recorded Factories

Recorded Factories allow you to record the material flow in one area of a simulation to use as a factory in another simulation. The running simulation of any material entering the Recorder box is tracked and written to a file. Once the simulation is complete, the recorded data can be used as a factory in any subsequent simulation, and thus reduce total simulation time by eliminating the need to simulate stages before the factory.

To add a Recorder to a simulation:
  1. Set up the simulation.
  2. In the Creator, create a Box Geometry.
  3. Select Recorder from the Type dropdown list.


  4. ​Set the Start Time and End Time for the recording.


    ​This allows you to specify when the Recorder will be active and enables simulations to reach steady state prior to starting the recording.
  5. Click Optimize Thickness to change the size of the recorder to the most efficient size.
    ​This will ensure that there is sufficient thickness to capture the data but eliminate the overhead of recording excessive information.
  6. Reposition the box to the point where you want the data recorded.
  7. Run the simulation.
    Note: If you want to run the simulation with the recorder again, you must first delete the recorder data folder created.

Add a Recorded Factory to the Simulation

You can have multiple recorded factories and recorders in a simulation.

To add a Recorded Factory to the Simulation:
  1. In the Creator, create a Box Geometry.
  2. Right-click the Box and select Add Factory > Add Recorded Factory.


  3. In the Particle Generation dialog box, click Choose Factory Folder to navigate to the folder which contains the Recorder data.


    Note: The factory folder and deck file must be in the same folder to load data successfully.
  4. Select the Start Time and End Time to limit the time in which material is generated.
  5. Select the Loop Factory checkbox to run repeatedly through your Recorded Factories.
  6. Select a value from the Delay between Loops dropdown list to add a pause between replays.
  7. Select the Create Particle Gap Between Loops checkbox to avoid instabilities due to overlapping particles.
    Note: Clear the Auto Calculation Time Step checkbox to run the simulation, otherwise, recorded factories will not work as expected. You must ensure that the Recorded factory simulation Time Step matches the Time Step of the original simulation.
    Figure 1. (a) Simulation with a Recorder box and (b) Simulation with a Recorded factory


    Known restrictions of Recorded Factories

    Note: Recorded factories are known to have the following limitations:
    • Factories cannot be rotated from the original recording position. Retain the same dimensions and coordinates for the recorded factories to work. It is recommended to copy these values from the original simulation.
    • The Recorder and Factory cannot exist in the same simulation (the recording simulation must be run prior to starting the factory simulation). It is assumed that particles are flowing out of the Recorder.
    • If a particle re-enters the recording space, contact detection will not occur.
    • The Recorder and writing the factory file adds a computational overhead to the simulation.