"An error occurred” after job preparation / Fatal IO Error

Hi all,

I’m very new to SimScale and FEA in general, so I’m hoping someone can point me in the right direction.

I’m currently trying to run a static structural analysis of a caravan chassis, mainly to check the chassis/drawbar under several VSB1 proof-load cases.

I originally had a much finer second-order mesh, but the simulation ran out of memory. I’ve since reduced the model significantly and changed to a first-order mesh for an initial diagnostic run.

The current run shows:

The run gets to 0% and then stops, so it does not appear to actually start solving.

The model is a fairly detailed welded RHS chassis made up of multiple bodies. I’m using bonded contacts between the structural members, a fixed support at the rear of the chassis, and a remote force at the coupling point. The remote force uses a table to run several independent static load directions.

I’m not sure whether the problem is coming from:

  • the number of contacts,
  • a bad or disconnected body,
  • the remote-force definition,
  • the mesh,
  • or something else in the structural setup.

I’m still learning SimScale, so I may be missing something fairly basic.

Could someone please have a look and advise what I should check first when the job prepares successfully but then immediately fails with this generic Fatal IO / “An error occurred” message?

If useful, I can share the project and screenshots of the mesh, contacts, boundary conditions and solver settings.

Thanks in advance for any help.