The Average fiber orientation result is generated by a Fill or Fill+Pack analysis using Midplane or Dual Domain analysis technology, when the option to perform Fiber orientation analysis if fiber material is enabled.
It shows the orientation of fibers during the injection molding process, averaged over the thickness.
The Fiber orientation analysis calculates the layer-based fiber orientation tensor at each time-step throughout the duration of the analysis. This tensor is expressed in six components in the local coordinate system of each element.
The average fiber orientation tensor is a tensor whose components are the average of the components of the layer-based fiber orientation tensor over thickness.
The average fiber orientation is expressed in the global coordinate system.
The Average fiber orientation result is output as a time series result, so that you can see the movement of fiber orientation throughout the injection molding process. The default plot shows tensor first principal values over the analysis duration.
The diagonal components of a fiber orientation tensor represent the strength of alignment in the respective directions. The values of diagonal components range between 0 and 1, and the sum of all three diagonal components is 1. The off-diagonal components of a fiber orientation tensor represent the amount that alignments vary from the coordinate axes, and they are zero when coordinate axes coincide with the principal directions of the orientation tensor.
The principal directions are numbered in the order of the respective principal values, from the largest to the smallest. The first principal direction represents the direction along which the most fibers are aligned, and the third principal direction represents the one along which the fewest fiber are aligned. The larger the principal value is, the stronger the alignment in the corresponding principal direction is.