MATLAB: Does the Simscape fail to solve initial conditions when I enable the ‘Start from steady state’ option in the Solver Configuration block

Question

I have a Simscape model in which I have set initial condition target values for several block variables. I have also enabled the 'Start from steady state' check box in the Solver Configuration block. When I try to simulate my model, I see an error message stating "Initial conditions solve failed to converge".

Answer 1

If you want to set initial condition targets for block variables then you must ensure that the "start from steady state" option is turned off. This is because when "start from steady state" is used, the solver ignores the initial condition targets you set for the variables and tries to find a steady state initial condition solution. In a big nonlinear model, it might not be able to find a steady-state solution. Even if it does, that steady-state solution is simply "a solution" and might not be a solution that you'd expected based on your variable targets (since those targets are ignored).