Composite Browser

Use the Composite Browser to create, organize, and manage composite modeling data.

The Composite Browser consolidates entities and tools used in ply-based models. Ply-based models can be created, edited and reviewed from within the Composite Browser. Additionally, composite stress toolbox functionality, such as ABD matrix calculation, is provided in the context menu of relevant entities.

Browser Interface

The Composite Browser interface.

The Composite Browser consists of two panes:
  1. The top pane contains a hierarchical view of either ply-based, or zone-based composite data.
  2. The bottom pane contains the Entity Editor.


Figure 1.

Views

Composite views.

View options appear at the top of the Composite Browser.

Laminate View

The laminate view displays entities used in a ply-based model build. This includes:
  • Laminates
  • Plies
  • Shapes (sets)
  • Properties
  • Materials
  • System Collectors
  • Tables


Figure 2.
The laminate view should be used for ply-based model creation, editing and review. Drag and drop functionality is also provided to stack plies in a laminate and to stack sublaminates in an interface laminate:
  • Plies can be dragged between the Unstacked Plies folder and the laminate in which they should be stacked.
  • Ply order within a laminate can be manipulated by dragging one of more plies to a new location within the laminate.
  • Interface Laminates and sublaminates can be defined by dragging one or more laminates into another laminate. The parent becomes an interface laminate and the children become sublaminates. For more information on this modeling technique, see Interface Laminates.
  • Material, Ply and Laminate level composite stress toolbox calculations, accessed from the Analyze context menu option.

Zone View

The zone view displays all the zones of constant thickness in laminates which contain only plies with a shape defined by an element set. Zones contain a subset of the plies which make up a laminate. One zone is calculated for each unique subset of plies. Zones are calculated automatically as a ply-based model is created and edited. Current functionality includes:
  • Laminate level composite stress toolbox calculations, such as ABD matrix calculation, accessed from the Analyze context menu option.
  • Editing of orientation, thickness and material of plies passing through a zone. Any changes will propagate to all zones that contain the edited ply.


Figure 3.

Orientation Visualization

Common orientation methods.

Material reference orientation is available by right-clicking the white space of the Composite Browser and selecting Orient > Material Reference Review from the context menu.

Material reference orientation is also available from the ply and laminate context menus under Review Orientations. Each of these methods work in a similar way to the selector tool available in most browsers. If either of the orientation methods are active, orientation vectors will be plotted on elements of the selected ply.


Figure 4.
  1. Ply 1 Direction: Displays ply 1 direction (fiber) orientations. If a drape table is assigned to the selected ply, drape corrections are included as part of the vector.
  2. Material Reference: Displays the x, y and z axes of the material reference orientation. This is the direction which ply orientations rotate from.

For additional control over ply orientation visualization and the specific vectors drawn, the Orientation Review dialog can be accessed by right-clicking the white space of the Composite Browser and selecting Orient > Ply Orientation Review from the context menu.

Composite Stress Toolbox

Composite stress tools functionality.

Composite stress toolbox functionality is provided in the context menu of relevant entities. Engineering constants and relevant material/laminate matrices can be calculated for:
  • Laminates: If plies have a shape defined by an element set, all zones of contain thickness in laminate. If one or more plies do not have shape defined, the full list of plies in the laminate is used.
  • Zones
  • Plies
  • Materials

Additionally, analysis entities can be created to run laminate strength, load response, and first ply failure analyses. For more information, see Composite Stress Toolbox.

Solver-Specific Details

Details for various solvers.

Entities created in the Composite Browser are assigned the most common solver card for a typical ply-based model. Properties and Shapes are filtered based on solver card to only display appropriate cards for a ply-based model. Additionally, in the OptiStruct profile, the appropriate card is set for laminate and ply entities upon creation.

OptiStruct

Entity Displayed Cards
Property PCOMPP
Set SET_ELEM, None

Radioss

Entity Displayed Cards
Property PCOMPP
Set SET_ELEM, None

Abaqus

Entity Displayed Cards
Property *SHELL_SECTION_COMPOSITE, with “Defined layers” unchecked
Set ELSET, None

ANSYS

Entity Displayed Cards
Property SECTYPE, with TYPE=SHELL, PLIES=0
Set SET_ELEM, None

LS-DYNA

Entity Displayed Cards
Property SectShll
Set Shell, None

Nastran

Entity Displayed Cards
Property PCOMPP
Set SET, None

Context Menu

Access additional composite options from the Composite Browser's context menu.

The context menu items appear only when applicable.
Entity Available for Description
Analyze Laminate, Material, Ply, Zone Perform traditional composite stress toolbox calculations.
Absorb White space Access to Solver Zone Property absorb, which converts solver properties to laminates and plies. For more information, see FE Absorb Plies
Assign Property Opens a dialog from which you can assign the selected template property to elements.
Card Edit Laminate, Material, Ply, Property, Shape, System Collector, Table You can edit any single item's card. You can edit multiple items provided that they use identical card images. This option displays the card image of the chosen entity for the current solver template; if a template is not loaded or if the entity does not have any card images associated with the loaded template, an error message displays in the status bar.
Collapse All Folders, Laminate Closes the selected folder(s) and its children folders (if any), so that only the selected folder displays.
Collapse All White space Closes all of the folders in the tree structure, so that only the top-most level of items displays.
Create White space and entity folders Creates entity of selected type and opens it in Entity Editor.
Delete All Deletes the selected entities. If the entity to be deleted contains children, these will not be deleted.
Drape Laminate, Ply Access to Kinematic Drape. For more information, see Tools.
Duplicate Laminate, Material, Ply, Property, Shape, System Collector Duplicates the selected entity and opens it in Entity Editor. For a ply, the option of duplicating multiple times is provided.
Empty Laminate, Ply, Shape Preview and delete empty collectors.
Expand All folders, Laminate Opens the selected folders and children in the tree structure, exposing every item nested in the selected folder.
Expand All White space Opens all of the folders in the entire tree structure, exposing every item nested at every level.
Export Laminate (Ply and Sub config only) Export Laminate data. File types include:
  • Spreadsheet – formatted table of plies within laminate
  • Catia Stack Up
Hide Laminate, Material, Ply, Property, Shape, System Collector, Zone

Turns off the entity in the graphics area. This selection affects each item’s local display control: it will make the icon become ghosted indicating the display state is off. This can also be used on an entity folder. In such cases, this hides all the items within that folder.
Import Laminate (Ply and Sub config only) Import Laminate data. File types include:
  • Spreadsheet – formatted table of plies within a laminate
  • Catia Stack Up
Insert Ply (contained in Laminate only) Creates a new ply and inserts it above the selected ply in a laminate.
Interfaces Laminate (Interface config only) Opens the Interfaces Dialog, which is used to define Interfaces in an Interface Laminate. Interfaces specify the order Sublaminates contact each other. For more information, see Interface Laminates.
Instance Ply (contained in Laminate only)

Generates the input number of instance plies. Instance plies are exact replications of the main ply. Any changes made to the main ply will propagate to all instances. If an instance is edited directly, the link to the main ply will be broken.
Isolate Laminate, Material, Ply, Property, Shape, System Collector,Zone Isolates the selected entity in the graphics area and hides all other entities.
Orient White space Orient is used to access tools to manipulate element orientations:
  • Element Normals – set 2D element normals.
  • Material Reference Orientation – set the 0° material reference orientation of the laminate.
  • Material Reference Review - review material reference orientations.
For additional information on the items listed above, see Material Reference Orientation.
  • Ply Normals – set the normal direction for individual plies.
  • Ply Orientation Review - review ply orientations.

For additional information on the items listed above, see Review Orientation.
Realize Laminate Generates zone-based solver property cards for the selected laminate. For more information, refer to Laminate Realize Dialog.
Realize Ply Coverts a ply shape defined using geometry to a shape defined by an element set. See Shapes Defined by Geometry.
References All Any single item or multiple items can be selected. Opens the References Browser and displays the relationship of the selected entities to other entities in the model in a hierarchical tree structure.
Remove Ply Removes the selected ply(s) from their parent laminate and into the Unstacked Ply folder.
Rename All

Any item can be renamed in the name text field. The new name must be unique. All instances of the renamed item update automatically. You can cancel the rename operation by pressing Esc. The high-level entity folders are non-editable, but you can rename folders containing the assembly hierarchy.
Rename Plies Laminate, Ply Access to dialog which provides several automatic ply naming methods. For more information, see Ply Rename
Reverse Orientation Laminate, Ply Multiples the orientation of selected ply(s) or plies within the selected laminate by -1.
Reverse Sequence Laminate Reverses the stacking sequence of plies contained in a laminate.
Review Laminate, Material, Ply, Property, Shape, System Collector, Zone Invokes Review mode, which displays selected entities irrespective of their display state, masked, active state (Entity State Browser).
Review Orientations Laminate, Ply Plots orientations vectors on elements contained in the selected ply or laminate. Two options are available:
  • Ply1 Direction –Displays ply 1 direction (fiber) orientations. If a drape table is assigned to the selected ply, drape corrections are included as part of the vector.
  • Material Reference –Displays the x, y and z axes of the material reference orientation. This is the direction which ply orientations rotate from.
Run Analysis Runs the selected analysis and opens the results in dedicated window.
Show Laminate, Material, Ply, Property, Shape, System Collector, Zone Displays the item(s) in the graphics area. The item's icon changes to bold indicating that the display state is on. Show can also be used at the folder level of an entity.
Show All White space Shows all entities contained in the Composite Browser.
Smooth   Accesses the Aerospace Ply Geometry Smoothing tool. For more information, see Aerospace Composite Tools.
Unused Material Preview and delete entities which are unreferenced in the database.

Utilities

Tools for working with composites.

Documentation for all for all utilities which are exposed in the Composite Browser is available in the Tools section.