HFSS Running the Simulation and Checking the Progress - HRG-Lab/hfss-tutorials GitHub Wiki

Running the Simulation and Checking the Progress

Design Validation

Though it is not required, it is sometimes good to use the validation check to make sure there are no obvious errors in your design (no ports defined, no solution setup, invalid object geometry, etc.). To do this simply click the green check mark located in the toolbar. This will quickly check your design for errors and list them in the Message Manager window in the bottom-left part of the screen. If this succeeds without errors, you can run the simulation.

Running the Simulation

To run the simulation, click the green exclamation point in the toolbar (located next to the green validation check mark). This will run all simulation setups associated with the current design. Alternatively, you may right-click on an individual solution setup (such as Setup1) in the Project Manager and select 'Analyze'.

This will start the simulation and you should see the red progress bar in the bottom-right part of the screen. To see more information about the simulation, click on the icon in the toolbar that says 'Solution Data' when you hover over it.

In the window that appears you will see the S Matrix at the solution frequency in (Magnitude, Phase[deg]) by default. You can also check the boxes for Gamma, Z0, Y Matrix, and Z Matrix to see the reflection coefficient, port impedance, Y Matrix, and Z Matrix, respectively. Typically, this is a good way to verify that the port impedances are approximately 50 ohms or whatever impedance you designed for. This information is updated every time a new pass is solved.

If you click on the 'Convergence' tab, you will see a table that has the Maximum Delta S for each pass number. According to our convergence criteria, the simulation will finish when this is below 0.01 for two consecutive passes. You can also view this information as a plot by clicking the 'Plot' button instead of 'Table'. This will graphically show you how your solution is converging.