View how laminate properties will change with different laminate layups.
Use the laminate survey tool to compute the laminate properties Ex, Ey, Gxy, NUxy, +Sx, -Sx, +Sy, -Sy, and Sxy based on a selected failure criterion and layup angles. Navigate to to view the window shown below.
There are five steps in conducting a laminate survey:
- Select the Lamina Type - The lamina types listed in this drop-down menu are the same lamina located in the file tree within the laminas branch. Caution when using isotropic materials in laminate survey with Hashin, Puck, and Christensen failure criterion. Failure modes and failure calculations may be invalid.
- Specify Lamina or Ply Layup Angles - Laminate Survey always analyzes a twelve ply balanced symmetric laminate using these angles. (e.g. the laminate layup is [+0/-0/+90/-90/+45/-45]s for the default angles given above). Note: Angles must be input as positive angles between 0 and 90 degrees.
- Specify Percent Thickness Increment - The laminate thickness is the sum of all twelve plies. There are four plies that correspond with each angle specified in (2) and the sum of their thicknesses together will account for a percentage of the total laminate thickness. This option changes the percentage that the four corresponding plies comprise of the total laminate thickness by the selected increment.
- Select Failure Criterion - There are seven failure criteria to select from. Laminate survey uses these criteria to calculate laminate strengths. Laminate strengths will depend on which failure criterion is selected. (See Appendix C for details on available failure criteria).
- Calculate Results - Once the input has been completed, click Calculate. The output window shows the results of the analysis.
The calculated results displayed above include:
- Layup - This defines the layup number. If a percentage increment of 10% is used, 66 different layups are examined. If 5% increments are used, 232 layups are examined.
- % ± 0 - The numbers within this column describe how much the four plies containing Angle 1 make up of the overall percentage of the laminate thickness.
- % ± 90 - The numbers within this column describe how much the four plies containing Angle 2 make up of the overall percentage of the laminate thickness.
- % ± 45 - The numbers within this column describe how much the four plies containing Angle 3 make up of the overall percentage of the laminate thickness.
- Ex, Ey, Gxy - Laminate material stiffnesses - axial Young's modulus, transverse Young's modulus, and shear modulus, respectively.
- ±Sx, ±Sy, Sxy - Laminate material strengths - axial tensile/compressive strength, transverse tensile/compressive strength, and shear strength, respectively.