Orthotropic material definition and Analysis 1
Laminate materials are Anisotropic (have varying material properties in different directions)
Extreme care must be taken to define these directions correctly within the FEA code. The consequences of getting this wrong are ‘garbage’ results!
Generally Orthotropic material models are used in composite FEA as these require less data input and give good results.
The example below shows the creation and orientation of a simple Orthotropic FE model and subsequent analysis.
Where L = 300mm, W = 30mm, t = 3mm, F = 10N
Note that the material/element 1
direction has been set to the global Y
axis in this example
Laminate materials are Anisotropic (have varying material properties in different directions)
Extreme care must be taken to define these directions correctly within the FEA code. The consequences of getting this wrong are ‘garbage’ results!
Generally Orthotropic material models are used in composite FEA as these require less data input and give good results.
The example below shows the creation and orientation of a simple Orthotropic FE model and subsequent analysis.
Where L = 300mm, W = 30mm, t = 3mm, F = 10N
Note that the material/element 1
direction has been set to the global Y
axis in this example
