Reply To: Set up time steps more efficiently

[mjmiddle]

You can aqply a load by APDL if you want. You are applying it by independent SF command so it won't override any load Mechanical defines unless a native load in Mechanical also creates this SF comand on the same nodes.
However, your APDL code is not right because it just keeps applying the same 5 index values over again without a time index or TIME command or issuing SOLVE command each time. You can use a table that contains the time and magnitude data in the SF command. See the help for the SF command:
https://ansyshelp.ansys.com/account/secured?returnurl=/Views/Secured/corp/v242/en/ans_cmd/Hlp_C_SF.html

Example: The following table has 4 rows, with times 0 sec, 0.3 sec, 0.7 sec, 1 sec

*DIM,_convec_data,TABLE,4,1,1,TIME, , , 0
! Time values
*TAXIS,_convec_data(1),1,0.,0.3,0.7,1.
! Load values
_convec_data(1,1,1) = 10.2
_convec_data(2,1,1) = 11.4
_convec_data(3,1,1) = 12.6
_convec_data(4,1,1) = 14.0
sf,all,conv,%_convec_data%

You should also apply another table for the value 2 as the bulk fluid temperatures:
SF, Nlist, Lab, VALUE, VALUE2, – ,MESHFLAG