Surface with Composite Plys

From D3PLOT 13.0 onwards, where composite plys are available, data can be plotted on a surface composed of plys.

This requires composites to be set-up in PRIMER using the Composites tool, or equivalently *SHELL_COMPOSITE_LONG cards, and a .ztf file. (Composite plys created using a *PART_COMPOSITE card are not available using this feature.)

The surface is only applicable to Shell elements with stress tensor derived results, plastic strain, and extra results.

For Shells with composite plys, integration point data may not be appropriate. For example, the sketch opposite shows a strip of material containing five different plys. If data is extracted by integration point, the data may be across blocks from different plys with different material properties.

If composite plys are available, in the shell integration point selection box there is a further option to Select plys... which displays the Ply Selection menu. Note 1: If Shell elements are in more than one selected ply then the ply with the lowest ID is used. Note 2: Data will not be averaged across different plys. Note 3: Elements which are not contained in the selected plys are greyed out.

In the Ply Selection menu the selected plys are listed on the right hand side. To add and remove selected plys click on the list of available plys. To confirm the selection the user must press Apply .

The list of available plys can be filtered using the options on the left: By Range Ply IDs must lie within the given range. By Name Ply names must contain this text (case insensitive). By Layup Plys must be contained in selected layups. (Only available if layups have been set-up in PRIMER.) Reset Deselects By Range , By Name and By Layup, and clears start, end and name fields, and any selected layups.

The menu includes plys in all active windows. The plys are ordered by window ID, model ID, then layup ID and position in layup (where layups have been set-up), or by ply ID (if layups are not available).

Ply local X axis

Once the user has selected plys, Show X axis on plys can be used to see the ply local X axis on the selected plys.

Note, because Shells can be in multiple plys, D3PLOT requires that the user selects plys to see the ply local X axis.