skip to main content


Title: An Automated Topology Optimization Platform Through a Collaborative Project Between Academia and Industry
The gap between research in academia and industry is narrowing as collaboration between the two becomes critical. Topology optimization has the potential to reduce the carbon footprint by minimizing material usage within the design space based on given loading conditions. While being a useful tool in the design phase of the engineering process, its complexity has hindered its progression and integration in actual design. As a result, the advantages of topology optimization have yet to be implemented into common engineering practice. To facilitate the implementation and promote the usage of topology optimization, San Francisco State University and the University of South Carolina collaborated with ARUP, a world leader in structural designs, to develop an Automated Topology Optimization Platform (ATOP) to synchronize commonly used industry software programs and provide a user-friendly and automated solution to perform topology optimization. ATOP allows for users to form a conceptual understanding of a structure’s ideal shape and design in terms of ideal material placement by iterating various parameters such as volume fraction, and minimum and maximum member size at the start of a project. With developed platform, a high-rise building design from the literature was first adopted to validate the results from ATOP, after which an actual design project from ARUP was utilized to fully explore its functionality and versatility. Results show that ATOP has the potential to create aesthetic and structurally sound designs through an automated and intelligent process.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1659507
NSF-PAR ID:
10192417
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ; ; ; ; ;
Date Published:
Journal Name:
IMAC-XXXVIII Conference and Exposition on Structural Dynamics
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. The gap between research in academia and industry is narrowing as collaboration between the two becomes critical. Topology optimization has the potential to reduce the carbon footprint by minimizing material usage within the design space based on given loading conditions. While being a useful tool in the design phase of the engineering process, its complexity has hindered its progression and integration in actual design. As a result, the advantages of topology optimization have yet to be implemented into common engineering practice. To facilitate the implementation and promote the usage of topology optimization, San Francisco State University and the University of South Carolina collaborated with ARUP, a world leader in structural designs, to develop an Automated Topology Optimization Platform (ATOP) to synchronize commonly used industry software programs and provide a user-friendly and automated solution to perform topology optimization. ATOP allows for users to form a conceptual understanding of a structure’s ideal shape and design in terms of ideal material placement by iterating various parameters such as volume fraction, and minimum and maximum member size at the start of a project. With the developed platform, a high-rise building design from the literature was first adopted to validate the results from ATOP, after which an actual design project from ARUP was utilized to fully explore its functionality and versatility. Results show that ATOP has the potential to create aesthetic and structurally sound designs through an automated and intelligent process. 
    more » « less
  2. The gap between research in academia and industry is narrowing as collaboration between the two becomes critical. Topology optimization has the potential to reduce the carbon footprint by minimizing material usage within the design space based on given loading conditions. While being a useful tool in the design phase of the engineering process, its complexity has hindered its progression and integration in actual design. As a result, the advantages of topology optimization have yet to be implemented into common engineering practice. To facilitate the implementation and promote the usage of topology optimization, San Francisco State University and the University of South Carolina collaborated with ARUP, a world leader in structural designs, to develop an Automated Topology Optimization Platform (ATOP) to synchronize commonly used industry software programs and provide a user-friendly and automated solution to perform topology optimization. ATOP allows for users to form a conceptual understanding of a structure’s ideal shape and design in terms of ideal material placement by iterating various parameters such as volume fraction, and minimum and maximum member size at the start of a project. With developed platform, a high-rise building design from the literature was first adopted to validate the results from ATOP, after which an actual design project from ARUP was utilized to fully explore its functionality and versatility. Results show that ATOP has the potential to create aesthetic and structurally sound designs through an automated and intelligent process. 
    more » « less
  3. This data set for the manuscript entitled "Design of Peptides that Fold and Self-Assemble on Graphite" includes all files needed to run and analyze the simulations described in the this manuscript in the molecular dynamics software NAMD, as well as the output of the simulations. The files are organized into directories corresponding to the figures of the main text and supporting information. They include molecular model structure files (NAMD psf or Amber prmtop format), force field parameter files (in CHARMM format), initial atomic coordinates (pdb format), NAMD configuration files, Colvars configuration files, NAMD log files, and NAMD output including restart files (in binary NAMD format) and trajectories in dcd format (downsampled to 10 ns per frame). Analysis is controlled by shell scripts (Bash-compatible) that call VMD Tcl scripts or python scripts. These scripts and their output are also included.

    Version: 2.0

    Changes versus version 1.0 are the addition of the free energy of folding, adsorption, and pairing calculations (Sim_Figure-7) and shifting of the figure numbers to accommodate this addition.


    Conventions Used in These Files
    ===============================

    Structure Files
    ----------------
    - graph_*.psf or sol_*.psf (original NAMD (XPLOR?) format psf file including atom details (type, charge, mass), as well as definitions of bonds, angles, dihedrals, and impropers for each dipeptide.)

    - graph_*.pdb or sol_*.pdb (initial coordinates before equilibration)
    - repart_*.psf (same as the above psf files, but the masses of non-water hydrogen atoms have been repartitioned by VMD script repartitionMass.tcl)
    - freeTop_*.pdb (same as the above pdb files, but the carbons of the lower graphene layer have been placed at a single z value and marked for restraints in NAMD)
    - amber_*.prmtop (combined topology and parameter files for Amber force field simulations)
    - repart_amber_*.prmtop (same as the above prmtop files, but the masses of non-water hydrogen atoms have been repartitioned by ParmEd)

    Force Field Parameters
    ----------------------
    CHARMM format parameter files:
    - par_all36m_prot.prm (CHARMM36m FF for proteins)
    - par_all36_cgenff_no_nbfix.prm (CGenFF v4.4 for graphene) The NBFIX parameters are commented out since they are only needed for aromatic halogens and we use only the CG2R61 type for graphene.
    - toppar_water_ions_prot_cgenff.str (CHARMM water and ions with NBFIX parameters needed for protein and CGenFF included and others commented out)

    Template NAMD Configuration Files
    ---------------------------------
    These contain the most commonly used simulation parameters. They are called by the other NAMD configuration files (which are in the namd/ subdirectory):
    - template_min.namd (minimization)
    - template_eq.namd (NPT equilibration with lower graphene fixed)
    - template_abf.namd (for adaptive biasing force)

    Minimization
    -------------
    - namd/min_*.0.namd

    Equilibration
    -------------
    - namd/eq_*.0.namd

    Adaptive biasing force calculations
    -----------------------------------
    - namd/eabfZRest7_graph_chp1404.0.namd
    - namd/eabfZRest7_graph_chp1404.1.namd (continuation of eabfZRest7_graph_chp1404.0.namd)

    Log Files
    ---------
    For each NAMD configuration file given in the last two sections, there is a log file with the same prefix, which gives the text output of NAMD. For instance, the output of namd/eabfZRest7_graph_chp1404.0.namd is eabfZRest7_graph_chp1404.0.log.

    Simulation Output
    -----------------
    The simulation output files (which match the names of the NAMD configuration files) are in the output/ directory. Files with the extensions .coor, .vel, and .xsc are coordinates in NAMD binary format, velocities in NAMD binary format, and extended system information (including cell size) in text format. Files with the extension .dcd give the trajectory of the atomic coorinates over time (and also include system cell information). Due to storage limitations, large DCD files have been omitted or replaced with new DCD files having the prefix stride50_ including only every 50 frames. The time between frames in these files is 50 * 50000 steps/frame * 4 fs/step = 10 ns. The system cell trajectory is also included for the NPT runs are output/eq_*.xst.

    Scripts
    -------
    Files with the .sh extension can be found throughout. These usually provide the highest level control for submission of simulations and analysis. Look to these as a guide to what is happening. If there are scripts with step1_*.sh and step2_*.sh, they are intended to be run in order, with step1_*.sh first.


    CONTENTS
    ========

    The directory contents are as follows. The directories Sim_Figure-1 and Sim_Figure-8 include README.txt files that describe the files and naming conventions used throughout this data set.

    Sim_Figure-1: Simulations of N-acetylated C-amidated amino acids (Ac-X-NHMe) at the graphite–water interface.

    Sim_Figure-2: Simulations of different peptide designs (including acyclic, disulfide cyclized, and N-to-C cyclized) at the graphite–water interface.

    Sim_Figure-3: MM-GBSA calculations of different peptide sequences for a folded conformation and 5 misfolded/unfolded conformations.

    Sim_Figure-4: Simulation of four peptide molecules with the sequence cyc(GTGSGTG-GPGG-GCGTGTG-SGPG) at the graphite–water interface at 370 K.

    Sim_Figure-5: Simulation of four peptide molecules with the sequence cyc(GTGSGTG-GPGG-GCGTGTG-SGPG) at the graphite–water interface at 295 K.

    Sim_Figure-5_replica: Temperature replica exchange molecular dynamics simulations for the peptide cyc(GTGSGTG-GPGG-GCGTGTG-SGPG) with 20 replicas for temperatures from 295 to 454 K.

    Sim_Figure-6: Simulation of the peptide molecule cyc(GTGSGTG-GPGG-GCGTGTG-SGPG) in free solution (no graphite).

    Sim_Figure-7: Free energy calculations for folding, adsorption, and pairing for the peptide CHP1404 (sequence: cyc(GTGSGTG-GPGG-GCGTGTG-SGPG)). For folding, we calculate the PMF as function of RMSD by replica-exchange umbrella sampling (in the subdirectory Folding_CHP1404_Graphene/). We make the same calculation in solution, which required 3 seperate replica-exchange umbrella sampling calculations (in the subdirectory Folding_CHP1404_Solution/). Both PMF of RMSD calculations for the scrambled peptide are in Folding_scram1404/. For adsorption, calculation of the PMF for the orientational restraints and the calculation of the PMF along z (the distance between the graphene sheet and the center of mass of the peptide) are in Adsorption_CHP1404/ and Adsorption_scram1404/. The actual calculation of the free energy is done by a shell script ("doRestraintEnergyError.sh") in the 1_free_energy/ subsubdirectory. Processing of the PMFs must be done first in the 0_pmf/ subsubdirectory. Finally, files for free energy calculations of pair formation for CHP1404 are found in the Pair/ subdirectory.

    Sim_Figure-8: Simulation of four peptide molecules with the sequence cyc(GTGSGTG-GPGG-GCGTGTG-SGPG) where the peptides are far above the graphene–water interface in the initial configuration.

    Sim_Figure-9: Two replicates of a simulation of nine peptide molecules with the sequence cyc(GTGSGTG-GPGG-GCGTGTG-SGPG) at the graphite–water interface at 370 K.

    Sim_Figure-9_scrambled: Two replicates of a simulation of nine peptide molecules with the control sequence cyc(GGTPTTGGGGGGSGGPSGTGGC) at the graphite–water interface at 370 K.

    Sim_Figure-10: Adaptive biasing for calculation of the free energy of the folded peptide as a function of the angle between its long axis and the zigzag directions of the underlying graphene sheet.

     

    This material is based upon work supported by the US National Science Foundation under grant no. DMR-1945589. A majority of the computing for this project was performed on the Beocat Research Cluster at Kansas State University, which is funded in part by NSF grants CHE-1726332, CNS-1006860, EPS-1006860, and EPS-0919443. This work used the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE), which is supported by National Science Foundation grant number ACI-1548562, through allocation BIO200030. 
    more » « less
  4. Greenhouse gases trap heat within our atmosphere, leading to an unnatural increase in temperature. Carbon dioxide and its equivalent emissions have been a large focus when considering sustainability in the civil engineering field, with a reduction of global warming potential being a top priority. According to a 2017 report by the World Green Building Council, the construction and usage of buildings account for 39 percent of human carbon emissions in the United States, almost one third of which are from the extraction, manufacturing, and transportation of materials. Substituting wood for high emission materials could greatly reduce carbon if harvested and disposed of in a controlled way. To investigate this important issue, San Francisco State University and University of South Carolina partnered with Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP, a world leader in designing high-rise buildings, through a National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Site program, to investigate and quantify the embodied carbons of various slab system designs using a high-rise residential complex in San Francisco as a case study. Three concept designs were considered: a concrete building with cementitious replacement, a concrete building without cementitious replacement, and a concrete building with cementitious replacement and nail-laminated timber wood inlays inserted into various areas of the superstructure slabs. The composite structural slab system has the potential to surpass the limitations of wood-framed structures yet incorporate the carbon sequestration that makes wood a more sustainable material. The results show that wood substitution could decrease overall emissions from the aforementioned designs and reduce the environmental footprint of the construction industry. 
    more » « less
  5. Greenhouse gases trap heat within our atmosphere, leading to an unnatural increase in temperature. Carbon dioxide and its equivalent emissions have been a large focus when considering sustainability in the civil engineering field, with a reduction of global warming potential being a top priority. According to a 2017 report by the World Green Building Council, the construction and usage of buildings account for 39 percent of human carbon emissions in the United States, almost one third of which are from the extraction, manufacturing, and transportation of materials. Substituting wood for high emission materials could greatly reduce carbon if harvested and disposed of in a controlled way. To investigate this important issue, San Francisco State University and University of South Carolina partnered with Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP, a world leader in designing high-rise buildings, through a National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Site program, to investigate and quantify the embodied carbons of various slab system designs using a high-rise residential complex in San Francisco as a case study. Three concept designs were considered: a concrete building with cementitious replacement, a concrete building without cementitious replacement, and a concrete building with cementitious replacement and nail-laminated timber wood inlays inserted into various areas of the superstructure slabs. The composite structural slab system has the potential to surpass the limitations of wood-framed structures yet incorporate the carbon sequestration that makes wood a more sustainable material. The results show that wood substitution could decrease overall emissions from the aforementioned designs and reduce the environmental footprint of the construction industry. 
    more » « less