nTop 5.7 is here! This release features two new response blocks for Topology Optimization and our new Collapse Vertices by Angle block for filtering out unwanted vertices. We also promoted our exact thickness features out of beta! 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.
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Reaction Force Response [Beta]
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Combine Design Responses [Beta]
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Collapse Vertices by Angle
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Block Updates
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Bug Fixes
Reaction Force Response [Beta]
- This block can be used to set reaction force limits on specific boundaries such as bolt holes while performing a topology optimization.
- Block Name: Reaction Force Response
- Location: Beta > Topology Optimization
- Description: Create a design response that measures the sum of reaction force vectors across a boundary. The response is derived from the solution of a linear static structural finite element analysis.
- Boundary: Boundary that the design response will be computed on.
- Load Case: Load case for the design response.
- Direction: Operation that will be applied after summing all reaction force vectors over the Boundary input. |X| will compute the magnitude of the reaction force vector projected onto the X-axis, |XY| will compute the magnitude of the reaction force vector projected onto the plane spanned by the X-axis and Y-axis, and |XYZ| will compute the magnitude of the non-projected reaction force vector.
- Frame: Reference frame that the reaction force will be computed in. If a frame is not specified, the global coordinate system will be used.
- Output: Data Type
Combine Design Responses [Beta]
- This block combines a list of like design responses in topology optimization workflows, drastically reducing the length of large topology optimizations with numerous like responses.
- Block Name: Combine Design Responses
- Location: Beta > Topology Optimization
- Description: Combines a list of design responses into a single response. The responses are combined according to the operation provided by the Aggregation input. The aggregate can be used in an optimization objective or design response constraint.
- Responses: List of design responses to be combined. All elements of the list must have the same units.
- Aggregation: The method of aggregation.
- Output: Design Response
Collapse Vertices by Angle
- Certain methods of creating lattices can generate highly subdivided beams which conform to surfaces but are difficult to filter or measure. The Collapse Vertices by Angle block removes intermediate vertices with an optional threshold to keep sharp angles. There is an overload for this block to use a Lattice input instead of a Graph. Use cases for this block include simplifying highly subdivided voronoi surface lattices or ribbing layouts for filtering workflows or simulation.
- Block Name: Collapse Vertices by Angle
- Location: Latticing > Utilities
- <Graph, Scalar Value> Description: Remove all of the intermediate vertices of a graph where the vertex valency is equal to 2. All intermediate vertices will be removed by default, but an optional threshold angle may be used to preserve sharp vertices.
- Graph: The graph of which to collapse the beams.
- Tolerance: The maximum allowed angular difference between beams joined by a single vertex. Beam angles greater than this threshold will be removed, collapsing the neighboring beams into one. A value of 180 deg will preserve all vertices.
- Output: Graph
- <Lattice, Scalar Value> Description: Remove all of the intermediate vertices of a lattice where the vertex valency is equal to 2. All intermediate vertices will be removed by default, but an optional threshold angle may be used to preserve sharp vertices.
- Lattice: The lattice of which to collapse the beams.
- Tolerance: The maximum allowed angular difference between beams joined by a single vertex. Beam angles greater than this threshold will be removed, collapsing the neighboring beams into one. A value of 180 deg will preserve all vertices.
- Output: Lattice
Block Updates
- Walled TPMS Unit Cell and Walled TPMS Unit Cell with Offset version 1.1.0 is now out of Beta. They can be found in Lattices > Unit Cells
- Updated option labels in the Direction Component Enum to use |X| notation instead of |Ux|
Bug Fixes
- We fixed an issue that caused incorrect wall thickness in certain cases when using the Walled TPMS Unit Cell block with Exact Thickness selected.
- We fixed an issue that would cause nTop to unexpectedly exit in certain cases when both field viewer and GPU acceleration were turned on.