nTop 5.5 is here! This release features our new contact type to the Structural Contact block, along with usage improvements, block updates, and bug fixes. As with every release, nTop's dedicated support team is ready to answer your questions. Please visit support.ntop.com to gain access to helpful tutorials and support articles.
Structural Contact with No Separation Contact
- This Structural Contact block creates a contact condition between two surfaces.
- Two contact types are now supported: Bonded and No Separation.
- Bonded contact prohibits relative displacement in the normal and tangential directions to the contact surface.
- No Separation contact only prohibits relative displacement in the normal direction.
- Both contact types do not allow the surfaces to separate if they are within the given tolerance.
- The contact constraint is enforced using the Augmented Lagrangian formulation whereby a penalty term is added to the Lagrangian function.
- This block can be used to transfer loads between two interfacing parts. Correctly modeling the contact interface is paramount for accurately predicting the component's behavior under various loading conditions. Typical uses of contact include bolted, riveted, or press-fit assemblies.
- Block Name: Structural Contact
- Location: Simulation > Model
| Bonded | No Separation |
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The GIFs above shows Bonded and No Separation contact type examples of the Structural Contact block. The No Separation type allows translational displacement between FE Meshes. The previous Bonded contact type prevents translational displacement between FE Meshes.
Usage Improvement
- We added more useful content to the Right Side Panel when no objects are selected, including Viewport Display Settings for easy access and helpful links to resources like nTop Learn, nTop Support, and What's New.
Block Updates
- We have updated the Implicit Body from CAD Body block to produce better results, which reduces rendering artifacts and small numerical precision errors for some CAD bodies.
| nTop 5.4 | nTop 5.5 |
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- We have updated the Boolean Union and Boolean Subtract blocks to support faster booleans and rendering for Implicit Bodies derived from meshes or CAD bodies in addition to primitives.
- We have updated the Min and Max Shell Thickness inputs of the Parametric Shell Component to accept the scalar field instead of the scalar type.
Bug Fixes
- We fixed an issue with the Walled TPMS Unit Cell and Walled TPMS Unit Cell with Offset blocks that caused rendering artifacts in some cases when Exact Thickness was enabled.
- We fixed an issue with Notebook Inputs that prevented the right-click menu from appearing on CAD objects.
- We fixed an issue with the Manual Run Mode button so that it no longer becomes stuck.