With Orca3D Marine CFD, you can easily create a Python script to automate the process of running multiple simulations that consist of the same vessel and condition, but with a range of speeds or RPMs. This is described in the Orca3D Help file. 


But what if you need to automate simulations for different hulls or different conditions (e.g., displacement or CG)? In that case, a good approach is to just write a batch (.bat) file that you can run from a Windows command prompt. Each line in the batch file has the command to run Simerics in "headless" (non-GUI) mode.


The first step, after having created the files using the Orca3D Marine CFD interface, is to open each of your .spro files in the Simerics GUI, so that it can create the mesh. Also make any other changes that you need (additional time steps, results saving frequency, numerical option, etc.). Then save the file.

Now create a text file with the extension .bat. Each line will run one simulation. For example,

"C:\Program Files\Simerics\Simericsmp.exe" -run "Light\20kt\Eastport 32 Light Displacement_20kt.spro"
"C:\Program Files\Simerics\Simericsmp.exe" -run "Heavy\20kt\Eastport 32 Heavy Displacement_20kt.spro"


If you don't need to make any changes to the number of time steps, results saving frequency, etc., then you can add an extra line for each simulation with the -saveas flag rather than the -run flag, which will simply open the file, create the mesh, save the file, and exit. So the batch file would look like the following:


"C:\Program Files\Simerics\Simericsmp.exe"  "Light\20kt\Eastport 32 Light Displacement_20kt.spro" -saveas "Light\20kt\Eastport 32 Light Displacement_20kt.spro"
"C:\Program Files\Simerics\Simericsmp.exe" -run "Light\20kt\Eastport 32 Light Displacement_20kt.spro"
"C:\Program Files\Simerics\Simericsmp.exe" "Heavy\20kt\Eastport 32 Heavy Displacement_20kt.spro"  -saveas "Heavy\20kt\Eastport 32 Heavy Displacement_20kt.spro"

"C:\Program Files\Simerics\Simericsmp.exe" -run "Heavy\20kt\Eastport 32 Heavy Displacement_20kt.spro"


If you have the path to the SimericsMP.exe file in your environment variables, you won't need to specify the C:\Program Files\Simerics path. Note the quotes, because of the space between Program and Files. If there are spaces in your .spro file name or the folder name where it is located, you'll need quotes there as well. 

In this example, I had a subfolder called Light\20kt and the first .spro file was in that folder. The second one was in Heavy\20kt. My batch file was in the folder that held these two subfolders.

One nice thing about this approach is that the headless version of Simerics is about 5%-10% faster than the GUI version.

If you want to test the process, set up a couple of .spro files that only run 10 time steps, with a results saving frequency of 5. Then it will run very quickly and you'll be able to confirm that it's all working properly.
Let me know if you have any questions.