SolutionInvalidity

Description

The SolutionInvalidity object holds solution invalid warning information for MOOSE. This object allows you to mark a solution as "invalid" under certain conditions and output in which objects and how many times the conditions occurs. An invalid solution means that the solution somehow does not satisfy requirements, such as a value being out of the bounds of a correlation. Solutions are allowed to be invalid during the nonlinear solve, but they are not allowed to be invalid once the solve has converged. A "converged" solution that is marked as invalid will cause MOOSE to behave as if the solution did NOT converge - including cutting back timesteps, etc.

To declare a solution as "invalid", use the macro in the following code to mark it. The user can provide a message to describe the reason for invalidity:

  if (_test_diffusivity > _threshold && _fe_problem.time() > _invalid_after_time)
  {
    if (!_test_different_procs || processor_id() == 0)
      flagInvalidSolution("The diffusivity is greater than the threshold value!");
    if (!_test_different_procs || comm().size() == 1 || processor_id() == 1)
      flagInvalidSolution("Extra invalid thing!");
  }
  _diffusivity[_qp] = _test_diffusivity;
}

tip

It is recommended to have a unique message for each invalidity, especially when you want to mark multiple types of invalid solutions within one object.

If any solution invalidity is detected during the solve, a summary table of solution invalid warnings will be generated and reported at the end of each time step. An example of this output is shown below:


Solution Invalid Warnings:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
|     Object      | Converged | Timestep | Total |                        Message                       |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
| NonsafeMaterial |        16 |       64 |    64 | The diffusivity is greater than the threshold value! |
| NonsafeMaterial |        16 |       64 |    64 | Extra invalid thing!                                 |
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Object: shows the moose object name registered for the solution invalid detection and an optional description
Converged: shows the number of solution invalid warnings for the latest iteration, at convergence
Timestep: shows the number of solution invalid warnings for the latest time step over all iterations
Total: shows the total number of solution invalid warnings for the entire simulation
Message: shows the description of the solution invalidity

When the solution is converged, the number of solution invalid warnings is reported for the latest iteration (linear/nonlinear), the last time step (over all solver iterations) and the entire simulation. SolutionInvalidity warnings can come from numerous objects, some executed once and some executed on every quadrature point. The number of occurrences reported reflects this.

This Solution Invalid Warnings table can be silenced by setting "allow_invalid_solution" to 'true'. Then the converged solution will be accepted even if there are still solution invalid warnings, but a message will be generated at the end of the calculation as a reminder:


*** Warning ***
The Solution Invalidity warnings are detected but silenced! Use Problem/allow_invalid_solution=false to activate

The Solution Invalid Warning can also be printed out immediately after it is detected by setting "immediately_print_invalid_solution" to true.

(moose/test/src/materials/NonsafeMaterial.C)

// This file is part of the MOOSE framework
// https://www.mooseframework.org
//
// All rights reserved, see COPYRIGHT for full restrictions
// https://github.com/idaholab/moose/blob/master/COPYRIGHT
//
// Licensed under LGPL 2.1, please see LICENSE for details
// https://www.gnu.org/licenses/lgpl-2.1.html

#include "NonsafeMaterial.h"
#include "MooseApp.h"

registerMooseObject("MooseTestApp", NonsafeMaterial);

InputParameters
NonsafeMaterial::validParams()
{
  InputParameters params = Material::validParams();

  params.addRequiredParam<Real>("diffusivity", "The diffusivity value.");
  params.addParam<Real>(
      "threshold",
      0,
      "This value sets the upper limit for the validity of the material property value.");
  params.addParam<bool>("test_different_procs",
                        false,
                        "True to test setting invalid solutions on different processors");
  params.addParam<bool>("test_invalid_recover", false, "True to test invalid solutions recover");
  params.addParam<Real>("invalid_after_time",
                        -std::numeric_limits<Real>::max(),
                        "Only set invalid solutions after this time");

  return params;
}

NonsafeMaterial::NonsafeMaterial(const InputParameters & parameters)
  : Material(parameters),
    _input_diffusivity(getParam<Real>("diffusivity")),
    _threshold(getParam<Real>("threshold")),
    _diffusivity(declareProperty<Real>("diffusivity")),
    _test_different_procs(getParam<bool>("test_different_procs")),
    _test_invalid_recover(getParam<bool>("test_invalid_recover")),
    _invalid_after_time(getParam<Real>("invalid_after_time"))
{
}

void
NonsafeMaterial::computeQpProperties()
{
  Real _test_diffusivity = _input_diffusivity;
  // Gradually modify diffusivity value to test solution invalid recover
  if (_fe_problem.dt() < 1 && _test_invalid_recover)
    _test_diffusivity /= 2;
  if (_test_diffusivity > _threshold && _fe_problem.time() > _invalid_after_time)
  {
    if (!_test_different_procs || processor_id() == 0)
      flagInvalidSolution("The diffusivity is greater than the threshold value!");
    if (!_test_different_procs || comm().size() == 1 || processor_id() == 1)
      flagInvalidSolution("Extra invalid thing!");
  }
  _diffusivity[_qp] = _test_diffusivity;
}