The Stationary () study and study step are used when field variables do not change over time, such as in stationary problems.

A stationary study does not depend on time. If you use the time t in any physics settings (for a subsequent time-dependent study step, for example), you can replace it for the stationary study with a global parameter or local solver constant t, to give it a fixed value.

A Stationary study step node corresponds to a Stationary Solver (the default) or a parametric solver.

There is also an option to run a Stationary study with an Auxiliary sweep, with or without a continuation parameter. When a continuation parameter is selected, the continuation algorithm is run, which assumes that the sought solution is continuous in these parameters. If no continuation parameter is given, a plain sweep is performed where a solution is sought for each value of the parameters. In both cases, a Stationary Solver node plus a Parametric attribute is used. The parametric solver is the algorithm that is run when a Parametric attribute node is active under a Stationary Solver node. Similarly, when the mesh adaptation solver is the algorithm that is run, an Adaptive Mesh Refinement subnode is added under a Stationary Solver node.

When there are active least-squares objective functions in the model, it is possible to run an Auxiliary sweep with least-squares defined parameters if there are any. To use this possibility, choose From least-squares objective from the Parameter list method list. Otherwise, Parameter list method is set to Manual. This option is hidden if there are no least-squares objectives in the model.

See Results While Solving in the Common Study Step Settings section.

This section contains some optional extensions of the study, such as Auxiliary Sweep (including continuation), automatic remeshing, and load cases.

Select the Automatic remeshing check box if the Auxiliary sweep check box is selected and you want the solver to remesh automatically when the quality of the mesh becomes poor in a Stationary study. Select the geometry to use for the automatic remeshing from the Remesh in geometry list. With automatic remeshing active, the solver adds an Automatic Remeshing subnode under the Parametric node under the Stationary Solver node. In that subnode, you specify the mesh quality expression that determines when to remesh.

Select the Define load cases check box to define load cases as combinations of defined load groups, multiplied with optional weights (load factors), and constraint groups. When this check box is selected, and a Parametric attribute node is also used, the load cases are also displayed under the Load Cases section for the Parametric node.

Load cases are useful for efficiently solving for a number of cases with varying loads (and constraints) in the same model without the need to reassemble the stiffness matrix. Use the Move Up (), Move Down (), Delete (), and Add () buttons to make the list contain the load cases that you want to solve for. For each load case, click in the column for the load groups and constraint groups that you want to include in the load case. By default, no load groups and constraint groups are included (). Load groups and constraint groups that are included appear with a check mark (). Optionally, change the default weights for the load groups from 1.0 to another value in the corresponding Weight column (which is to the right of the load group that it is acting on). A weight of 1.5, for example, adds an extra 50% to the magnitude of the loads in the load group; a weight of −1 reverses the direction of the loads.

If you are running a parametric sweep and want to distribute it by sending one parameter value to each compute node, select the Distribute parametric solver check box. This requires that your study includes a parametric sweep. To enable this option, click the Show More Options button () and select Batch and Cluster in the Show More Options dialog box.