Estimated completion time = 60 minutes.

In this practical session, you will test the EASAP that you have built in the previous sessions and make sure that it functions properly. Next we publish the EASAP and verify that it is available in User mode. More detailed reference information on testing and publishing EASAPs can be found at the Author's Pages. Please follow the instructions below to complete this practical session.

• Start EASA, log in, and Set Mode→Author

• Under EASA→Applications→My EASAPs click on our ‘Rectangular Plate’ EASAP.

• Now in this new page click EASA→Authoring→Testing and then on the new page click on the Test EASAP link.

• After the EASAP window appears, select the third tab labeled 3. Loads on Plate and set a uniform load of 1.0 ksf.

• Next select the fourth tab and type in ‘Testing’ for the Project title and ‘Run 2’ for the Case title.

• Click on the Submit button ().

After a second or two, a pop-up window should appear when the EASAP has been submitted successfully.

• Click OK on this pop-up window

• Minimize the EASAP window for later use and on the EASA browser pages select EASA→Authoring menu→Testing

• Locate the Application that you just submitted in the Testing table. The Date and Application columns should provide enough information to find it. The Status column may show a variety of messages:
  • ‘Queued’ implies the job is waiting for another job to complete before starting
  • A percentage implies the job is currently running
  • ‘Completed’ implies the job has completed, click View Results button () in the Output column to examine the EASAP output.

Let’s look at the files that will help you diagnose problems you may encounter getting an EASAP to run properly.

• Click on the Browse Files button () in the Files column for your latest EASAP run.

• In the popup window look for err1-runplate.txt in the list. This file should have a Size of 0.0 kb. If not then click on the filename to view the error messages. If you are unable to determine the cause of the errors then contact your instructor or EASA support representative. At this point, can go back to the EASAP Builder and make changes based on suggestions from the EASA support person. Then resubmit the EASAP for another test, iterate in this way until all errors in the err1-runplate.txt file have been remedied.

Note: Not all messages captured in the standard error diagnostic files such as err1-runplate.txt will be errors that need to be eliminated. Often software applications send other types of messages to the standard error stream.

• Open up the out1-runplate.txt file to familiarize yourself with program's file output. Then click on the browser's Back button.

• Look to see that a PLATE.OUT file has been created. If not then there is a problem with the EASAP or the input file plate.txt. Open this file and look to see if all DORs were replaced correctly.

The file should look like the following:

If the input file does not look like the one above and you are unable to determine the cause of the problem, then contact your instructor or EASA support representative. At this point, you may need to either go back to the EASAP Builder window and make changes to your EASAP or make modifications to your template plate.txt file in the text editor. You will then resubmit the EASAP for another test. Iterate in this way until the DORs in the plate.txt file get replaced properly and a valid PLATE.OUT file is produced. At this point, you have successfully completed an EASAP run.

• If you haven’t already done so, you can now examine the reported results by clicking on the View Results button () in the Output column. The report should look similar to what you saw when you developed the Output branch in Practical Session 6

If the report does not appear correctly, please contact your instructor or EASA support representative for assistance. Again, you may need to go back to the EASAP Builder window and make changes to your EASAP based on suggestions from the EASA support person. This time you will NOT have to resubmit the EASAP for another test. You just need to save your changes in EASAP Builder, click on the View Results button () in the Output column and click the ‘Regenerate report’ link to see an updated report. Iterate in this way until the report appears as expected.

• Once the Status of a run has become ‘Completed’, you can view its results by selecting it and then clicking on the ‘5. Results’ tab on the EASAP.

This TABBED PANE should then look like the following:

Your EASAP should now be ready for publishing.

• Select EASA→Authoring→Publish add a comment and then click on the Publish button. A new window states: ‘The EASAP has been successfully published.’

Now check if your EASAP will be visible to Users on the EASA system.

• Go to EASA→Set Mode→User

• Click on the EASA→Applications and select 'Training' as the Category.

A thumbnail of your EASAP should now be visible in the gallery layout for this part of the Applications Library.

• If you like, you can open up your EASAP, modify some inputs and then submit it to run as a User. The output from an EASAP run as a User will appear in EASA→Results→My Results.

Next we will go back to our plate EASAP and modify it to generate parametric runs.

• First, Set Mode→Author

• Under EASA→Applications→My EASAPs click your ‘Rectangular Plate’ EASAP with your name as the author. Click on the Builder link in the new window.

• In the EASAP Builder expand the PROPERTIES branch by clicking on its and then select APPLICATION. Set the Max. Parametric Runs: parameter to a value of ‘50’

• Expand USER INTERFACE→TABBED PANE LIST and then expand props and dim.

We now add a PARAMETRIC RANGE to the INPUTBOX's input_W, input_L and input_t.

• For each right-click and select Child→Add PARAMETRIC RANGE ()

• Save the EASAP by clicking on the Save button, and then check your work.

The first TABBED PANE window should now look like this:

Notice the symbols () to the right of the INPUTBOX's within the ‘Plate Dimensions’ SUB PANE box indicating the ability to set up parametric ranges for these inputs.

Let's update EASA→Results to include parametric output.

• On the Tree and right-click OUTPUT and select Child→Add PARAMETRIC REPORT ()

• Right-click parametric_report1 and select Child→Add PARAMETRIC TABLE (). Set:

• Save the EASAP,File→Save and exit the Builder.

Now perform a parametric test of the modified EASAP.

• Select EASA→Authoring→Testing and then click on the Test EASAP link.

• In the '1. Plate Properties' tab of the EASAP window, click on the parametric range button () next to the INPUTBOX labeled 'Width' and the following pop-up should appear:

• Select the ‘Enable’ option in the top-right of the window to enable parametric range functionality, and enter some values into the text area within the ‘Width Values’ pane. In this example, we will use the values '0.5, 1.5, 3'. Click ‘Ok’.

• Open up the parametric settings window for the 'Length' INPUTBOX, click 'enable', and enter the values '3,2,1'. Now select the ‘All Values’ tab.

It should look like this:

In this pane, you can see a table which displays each expected run and their corresponding ‘Width’ and ‘Length’ values. Note that when using multiple parametric ranges, it is important to ensure that each list of values is the same length.

• Click 'OK'.

• Now type directly into the input box labeled ‘Thickness’ the value ‘0.25’

• Select the third tabbed pane labeled ‘3. Loads on Plate’ and set a uniform load of 1.0 ksf.

• Now click on the Submit button on the fourth tabbed pane.

After a second or two a pop-up window should appear when the EASAP has been submitted successfully.

• Click OK on this pop-up window

• Exit the EASAP window and back on the browser pages select EASA→Authoring→Testing and you should be taken to a page that looks like the following:

• You should now locate the Application that you just submitted in the EASAS→Authoring→Testing table. The Date and Application columns should provide enough information to find it. Now, check the Status column for the run you just submitted to see the progress of the parametric study runs. You should also notice that the Output column now contains a new icon for viewing a parametric study ()

• Whether the Status column says the runs have completed or are still in progress, you can click on a View Results button to see the results up to that point.

Once completed, the output presented when you click on this link will look like the following:

You can view the individual reports by clicking on the Results icons.

Once you have completed your review of the parametric study results, you can publish a new release of your EASAP.

• Select EASA→Authoring→Publish add a relevant comment and click Minor Revision.

A window states ‘The EASAP has been successfully published.’

• Finally, you can Log Out of EASA

Congratulations! Your new EASAP is ready to be deployed to users.

Practical Session 7