Adds material inside a design space where it stiffens the part most, within a material budget. The part itself stays as it is.
The smallest printable feature is the connected Print Process's, else the part's wall thickness. The part is the body among the Bodies that is treated as a Thin wall; the other bodies take part as they are, joined to the part where they touch. A Bolted Joint's bolts take part as a body of their own, in the joint's Bolt material, derived from its holes (the axis and the diameter from the holes, the head from the counterbore, the thread 1.5 bolt diameters into the threaded part), joined to its two parts where they touch them; no material is added where they are. The design space is a Solid: material goes only inside it and outside the part.
Every added member is at least the smallest feature thick: the optimizer rates each layout by how stiff it stays with its members thinned, so a member thinner than the feature, which the thinning takes away, adds nothing and is left out. With a Print Process connected, the added material is built to print without supports along its build direction: no overhang flatter than 45° from the build plate, 55° along the grid's diagonals. Without one, printability is not enforced: overhangs and sealed powder pockets are not checked, and #Printability says so. The optimizer works on a grid of cells a quarter of the smallest feature wide, first on cells four and two times that size, each finer grid refining what the coarser one found; the Load Case's loads and supports act on the outer cell faces their selections pick. The run shows a live map of where material goes under one Load Case (on a grid of more than half a million cells, drawn on blocks of its cells, each block at the highest density in it), runs on each grid until its layout settles or to its cap of rounds (60 on the first grid, 15 on each finer one), and a run you stop keeps its newest round.
The result is the part with its added material (the finest grid's density above 0.5, inside the design space) as a Solid; added pieces that do not reach the part are removed, so nothing floats, and so are added pieces with less material than a cube of the smallest feature (1 mm³ for a 1 mm feature), too small to print, and then, with a Print Process connected, any added material those removals leave with nothing under it within 45° along its build direction, which could not print either; the run's log says how many of each kind were removed and how much material they held.
An enclosed void in the added material smaller than that cube, a pocket too small for any printer to make, is filled, and #FilledVoids says how many and their volume; a pocket that size or larger is never filled. While it runs, its progress gives the optimizer's own estimate of the gain on its grid, said to be the estimate: it ranks designs and is never the result's number.
At its end, after the clean-up, the run makes the quick estimate: the finished part (the part with its added material, as this block outputs it) and the part alone, each as solid on cubes a quarter of the smallest printable feature wide — the optimizer's finest cells —, so a wall at the smallest feature is four cubes thick, a cube solid where its centre lies inside it, solved by the optimizer's own solver; the result card and the run's log say the cubes' size and where it came from. Quick cube size, in the Advanced fold, sets their size by hand (the optimizer's cells stay as they are; a change to it runs this block again): finer cubes read thinner walls, and half the size takes about eight times the memory.
Before it solves anything, the quick estimate counts what its cubes take in memory: more than this device allows, and it is refused by name, with the cubes' size, the memory they would take, the device's budget and what makes it fit (a larger smallest feature in the Print Process, a smaller part or design space, or larger cubes set by hand).
It gives #QuickStiffnessGain, #QuickDeflectionBefore and #QuickDeflectionAfter, labelled "Quick estimate" on the result card: the cubes' steps stand for the surfaces, so it is an estimate.
It also gives #QuickSurfaceStressBefore and #QuickSurfaceStressAfter, labelled "typical surface stress (99 % of the surface stays under this), Quick estimate": the stress read at the part's true surface — each face between a cube of the part and an empty cube, or another body's cube where the part touches that body (joined or left free), is crossed by the true surface, found there on the part's own field; at each such point the stress of the cubes within two cubes of it, behind the surface there (so that at an inner corner each face reads its own wall), is fitted as a straight function of the place and read at the point, every cube inside the part taking part; on a face along the cubes every outer cube takes part too and the point is read at the cubes' face, on a slanted face an outer cube only where its centre lies half a cube deep (the steps leave the others under- or over-stressed) — and the level 99 % of the part's surface stays at or below, two smallest features round every Support left out. It is not the peak, and the card says so beside it: "Peaks at sharp inner corners are not settled by any solver."
The cubes join the model's bodies where their cubes touch and nowhere else, and leave free where they touch what a connection leaves free: where a Tie holds less than where the bodies' cubes touch, the rest of that contact is free, and so are the faces where a Bolted Joint's two parts touch; a Bolted Joint's bolts are a body of the cubes, joined to the parts where their cubes touch. Bodies whose cubes meet only along an edge or at a corner stay joined there. The quick estimate refuses by name, with where, a Tie that holds bodies where their cubes do not touch, and a Contact.
After the quick estimate, with a Print Process connected, the run looks for sealed pockets, empty spaces of the finished part with no way out, where powder cannot get out after printing, read on cubes a quarter of the smallest feature wide and on the part as it is printed, alone: a space another body of the model would close is open, because the powder comes out before the part is assembled with it. A pocket the added material closes refuses the result by name, with its size and where it is, on the result card and in #Printability; one smaller than a cube of the smallest feature is too small for a printer to make and is named, not refused.
A refused part still shows on this block, so you can find the pocket in a cut, but no block that reads this one receives it: each says why, naming this block and the pocket, and an export of it fails the same way. A cavity the part already closes on its own is yours and is named, not refused.
A run you stop has no quick estimate, and #Settled says where it stopped. A row with no value yet is not listed. With #AddedVolume, #MaterialBudget, #QuickStiffnessGain, #QuickDeflectionBefore, #QuickDeflectionAfter, #QuickSurfaceStressBefore, #QuickSurfaceStressAfter, #Printability, #FilledVoids, #Iterations (the rounds on all grids) and #Settled.
The Analysis Bodies of the part: the one treated as a Thin wall is the part that stays as it is. Its Solid, its material and its wall live there: its Thickness is the part's wall, and the smallest printable feature when no Print Process is connected. The other bodies take part as they are, each of one material, joined to the part where they touch; a Bolted Joint's bolts take part as a body of their own, derived from the joint's holes.
Optional list of Contact, Tie and Bolted Joint connectors between the bodies.
A Solid: where material may be added. The optimizer adds material only inside it and outside the part. A region that must stay free is yours to take out of it.
One Load Case: its loads and supports.
How much material may be added, in percent of the part's own material volume (for a thin-walled part, the volume of its wall): above 0, up to 100. The result gives it in mm³ as well.
Optional: how the part is printed, a Print Process. Connected, the added material is built to print without supports along its build direction (no overhang flatter than 45°, 55° along the grid's diagonals), a pocket the added material seals in the part as it is printed, alone (another body does not close a pocket: the powder comes out before assembly; one smaller than a cube of the smallest feature is named, not refused), refuses the result by name, and its smallest feature is the smallest the added material may be. Unconnected, the smallest feature is the part's wall thickness and printability is not enforced: overhangs and sealed powder pockets are not checked, and the result says so.
Optional: the edge of the cubes the quick estimate solves on, in mm. Leave it empty to have it chosen: a quarter of the smallest printable feature, the optimizer's finest cells, so a wall at the smallest feature is four cubes thick. Set by hand, the quick estimate solves on these cubes and the card says so; the optimizer's cells stay a quarter of the smallest feature, and a change runs this block again. Finer cubes read the stress of walls thinner than the smallest feature; half the size takes about eight times the memory and the time.
Values the block gives besides its output. The editor lists them under Properties, and an input can read one by reference.
Volume of the material the run added inside the design space.
The added volume as a share of the part's own material volume.
The quick estimate, made with the run's result: how much stiffer the finished part is than the part alone, both analysed as solid on cubes of the optimizer's finest cells (a quarter of the smallest feature) by the optimizer's own solver — the part alone's Quick deflection before over the Quick deflection after, less one. An estimate: the cubes' steps stand for the surfaces; the full check gives the numbers to rely on. Not given for a run you stop.
The quick estimate, made with the run's result: how far the load moves the part alone on the optimizer's cubes — the loaded faces' displacement along the load, averaged by the force each carries. An estimate; the full check's Deflection before is the number to rely on.
The quick estimate, made with the run's result: how far the load moves the finished part, the part with its added material as the block outputs it, on the optimizer's cubes, read as Quick deflection before is. An estimate; the full check's Deflection after is the number to rely on.
Typical surface stress (99 % of the surface stays under this), Quick estimate, of the part alone: its von Mises stress read at the part's true surface from the optimizer's cubes, away from the Supports — the level 99 % of that surface stays at or below, by area, two smallest features round every Support left out. Not the peak: the stress at sharp inner corners and rib roots is higher and not estimated here. Where the part thins out to an edge thinner than four cubes over a small share of its surface — a local thin spot, all of them together at most a quarter of a percent of the surface away from the Supports — that spot is left out, and the card names it ("Not estimated at: …"). Not given where a wall in bending is thinner than four cubes, or where a sharp inner corner sets it (15 % or more of it from the surface within four cubes of the part's sharp inner edges); the card names that wall or corner, where it is, and the cubes that read it. An estimate.
Typical surface stress (99 % of the surface stays under this), Quick estimate, of the finished part, the part with its added material, read as Quick surface stress before is, its local thin spots left out and drawn on the part (Quick not estimated). Not the peak: the stress at sharp inner corners and rib roots is higher and not estimated here. Not given where a wall in bending is thinner than four cubes, or where a sharp inner corner sets it (15 % or more of it from the surface within four cubes of the part's sharp inner edges); the card names that wall or corner, where it is, and the cubes that read it. An estimate.
Quick estimate's stress: the quick estimate's stress drawn on the finished part (MPa) — the part coloured by its von Mises stress, its sharp inner corners and rib roots greyed where the cubes read low, and the steps of its cubes on faces along them, where they read off both ways; the view's default. A single cube of its grid holding a sliver of material can read a spike that is no stress, drawn as a ring, and measured against fine reference models it reads more than 10 % low on a few percent of the surface it colours — the card's typical surface stress is the number to trust
How much stiffer the finished part is than the part alone under the Load Case, from the full check's analysis of both, and from nothing else: the part alone's deflection over the finished part's, less one. Not listed until the full check has run (one click on the result card, its time said there), nor when its analysis did not run: a run you stop is not checked, and an analysis that cannot run (memory, a part it cannot take) gives no number; Final check says why.
How far the load moves the part alone in the final check's analysis: the loaded faces' displacement along the load, averaged by the force each carries. Not listed until the full check has run, nor when its analysis did not run.
How far the load moves the finished part, the part with its added material, read as Deflection before is. Not listed until the full check has run, nor when its analysis did not run.
Typical surface stress (99 % of the surface stays under this), full check, of the part alone: its von Mises stress on its true surface from the final check's analysis — the level 99 % of that surface stays at or below, by area, the surface within two result cells of a Support's faces left out, each point of the surface reading the result cell that holds it; the same reading as Quick surface stress before. Not the peak: peaks at sharp inner corners are not settled by any solver. Not listed until the full check has run, nor when its analysis did not run, nor where a thin wall of the part joins solid material of its own body (a boss, a Keep solid region): Final check says why.
Typical surface stress (99 % of the surface stays under this), full check, of the finished part, the part with its added material, read as Surface stress before is. Not the peak: peaks at sharp inner corners are not settled by any solver. Not listed until the full check has run, nor when its analysis did not run, nor where a thin wall joins solid material of its own body — the added material on its wall, a boss, a Keep solid region: Final check says why.
What the final check of the finished part found: passed with the analysis' numbers (the stiffness gain, the deflection before and after, and the typical surface stress of each side whose thin walls join no solid material of their own body — the finished part's added material joins its wall — with why where it gives none); refused because the added material closes a pocket powder cannot get out of (its size and where it is; looked for only with a Print Process connected); analysed with the numbers where no Print Process is connected, no pocket looked for; or not checked, with why (a run you stopped, an analysis that cannot run, a part the check refuses by name: a slit or gap narrower than its elements, a body as thin as its wall, added material that runs into a thin solid part of the wall such as a lug) and no number. The part's own closed cavities are named. With numbers, how close the full check comes as measured against fine reference models on the validation parts.
Whether the added material is built to print: with a Print Process connected, enforced — built along its build direction without supports (no overhang flatter than 45°, 55° along the grid's diagonals), a sealed powder pocket refused, nothing thinner than the smallest feature; without one, not enforced, and overhangs and sealed powder pockets are not checked.
How many rounds the optimizer ran.
Whether the layout stopped changing: yes, or no with how the run ended — at its cap of rounds, or stopped at a round, whose result is then the one kept.
The enclosed voids in the added material smaller than a cube of the smallest feature, pockets too small for any printer to make, filled after the run: how many, with their volume in all, or none. A pocket that size or larger is never filled; with a Print Process connected, the final check refuses it by name.
How far each point of the finished part moves under the Load Case in the final check; its .Length is what the view draws.
Where Quick gives no stress: where the quick estimate gives no stress on the finished part: its local thin spots, where the part thins out to an edge thinner than four cubes over a small share of its surface, left out of Quick surface stress after and named on the card — 1 there, 0 elsewhere, the spots striped on the part. Not listed where the finished part's stress has none left out.