Introduction

Data Import

This manual introduces the Data Import facility in Simcenter Amesim™ software. For everyday modeling tasks, it is often necessary to import data coming from experimental measurements (e.g. physical test benches) or from available numerical results into models. The objectives of importing data can be:

• Replaying measurements to compare them with the simulation results or for using them as inputs to other components of your model (e.g. to define mission profiles or excitations, based on existing data).

• Replacing non-modeled parts of your system or from its environment by interpolated or fitted approximations of measured quantities.

• Configuring components that rely on (or may use) data-based samples of physical quantities, predefined evolutions of variables, or various kinds of measured properties.

In practice however, fulfilling any of these purposes often implies manual conversion of input files to a format that is directly usable by Simcenter Amesim, which is sometimes time-consuming or difficult.

The Data Import is designed to address this issue: it allows selecting and importing data contained in various types of text or spreadsheet files, by converting this data to Simcenter Amesim standard tables automatically. It provides a bridge with the Table Editor in case some data processing is needed. This bridge also allows you to start the Data Import from the Table Editor.

For the purposes mentioned previously, two main import workflows can be distinguished, depending on whether you need to process your data or not. Note that practical access and use of your data is always done through a submodel able to read and exploit it. The two import workflows are described below:

• Importing data into Simcenter Amesim without editing it: Figure 1: Direct import of raw data into Simcenter Amesim

• Importing and editing data into Simcenter Amesim: Figure 2: Import, process and use of raw data in Simcenter Amesim

The only difference between the processes described in the two figures above is the use of the Table Editor between the Data Import and the target component submodel in the second case.

In both cases, the output of the process is a native Simcenter Amesim look-up table data file (with the .data extension). It is created and saved at the location of your choice. It is then ready to use in any of the submodels requiring either the 1D, XY, or M1D standard table formats.