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ANSYS Fluent 2026 R1.04 is available to all AI.Panther users. This article covers running Fluent interactively via Open OnDemand and headless as a Slurm batch job.
Load the software into your shell with:
module load ansys
Fluent's license allows 4 parallel processes per job. Keep -t at 4 or fewer.
Interactive use (GUI)
Interactive Fluent runs inside an Open OnDemand desktop session on a VDI node.
1. Start a desktop session
- Sign in to ondemand.fit.edu.
- Go to Interactive Apps > Desktop.
- Choose a partition (
vdi-short, vdi-med, or vdi-long) and click Launch.
- When ready, click Launch Desktop.
2. Open a terminal inside the desktop
Click Applications > Terminal Emulator.
3. Launch Fluent with hardware graphics
module load ansys
vglrun fluent 3ddp
The vglrun prefix routes 3D rendering to the vGPU on the VDI node. Without it, the viewport falls back to software rendering.
3ddp selects 3D double precision.
Headless use (Slurm)
Submit solver runs through Slurm. Save the script below as run_fluent.sbatch, replacing input.jou with the path to your Fluent journal file:
#!/bin/bash
#SBATCH --job-name=fluent_run
#SBATCH --partition=med
#SBATCH --nodes=1
#SBATCH --ntasks=4
#SBATCH --time=04:00:00
#SBATCH --output=fluent-%j.out
module load ansys
fluent 3ddp -g -t${SLURM_NTASKS} -i input.jou
Submit with:
sbatch run_fluent.sbatch
Flag notes:
-g runs without a GUI.-t${SLURM_NTASKS} sets the number of parallel processes.-i input.jou reads Fluent commands from a journal file.
Partitions available for Fluent:
| Partition |
Max walltime |
short |
45 minutes |
med |
4 hours |
long |
168 hours |
Troubleshooting
"Software rasterizer found, hardware acceleration will be disabled." Rerun with the vglrun prefix.
"This application failed to start because no Qt platform plugin could be initialized." Runtime libraries are missing on the node. Submit a ticket (link below).
Getting help
Submit a ticket at help.fit.edu. Include your job ID (squeue --me) and the tail of the output file.