© 2009 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved. 1 ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary© 2009 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved. 1 ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary
ANSYS Composite
Prep/Post 12.1
Modeling and Assessment
of Composite Structures
Pierre THIEFFRY
Lead Product Manager
ANSYS, Inc.
© 2009 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved. 2 ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary
Summary
• Dedicated to allow for easy and efficient definition and
modification of layered-composite structures as well as their
specific post-processing
• Dedicated to provide leading-edge technology in pre- and
postprocessing of layered composite structures
• Integrates with Mechanical Simulation as well as with
Mechanical APDL
• Provides failure assessment as well as manufacturing
information such as draping and plybooks.
© 2009 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved. 3 ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary© 2009 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved. 3 ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary
Terminology
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Composites
• Composite materials are made of at least two distinct materials with different
material parameters for each phase
• Fiber reinforced composites (FRC) are composites where one material
component (fiber) is used as a reinforcing material for the matrix
• Composites have a wide range of usage: sports, civil engineering, automotive &
aerospace industry, shipbuilding, cables, consumer goods…
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What is required to analyze
laminate composite structures?
• An accurate representation of the structure in its environment:
geometry, mesh, loads & boundary conditions
• An accurate representation of the composites : material behavior,
ply definitions, orientations of the fibers…
• A numerically accurate solver
• A wide array of tools to investigate and understand the results
and estimate the risks of failure
• Links to the manufacturing process (draping, plybooks …)
• All of this in a user-friendly environment!
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The ANSYS
Composite
Prep/Post
Advantage
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Accurate representation of the
geometry
• User of the ANSYS
Composite Prep/Post benefit
from all the advantages of
the ANSYS solutions:
– Direct CAD imports from all
major CAD products
– Import of standard geometry
formats (STEP, Parasolid…)
– Geometry cleaning
– Best-in class meshing
capabilities for surface and
solid models – with linear or
quadratic elements
• Meshing information as well
as loads and boundary
conditions are transferred to
ANSYS Composite PrepPost
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Laminate modeling
• A hierarchical data description of materials, stackups and laminates
Base information:
Engineering data and material limits
Fabrics
Laminates
Stackups
Add thickness,
pricing and draping
information
Stack fabrics, add
pricing and draping
information
Define final
laminate
product
Stackups and laminates provides symmetry definition capabilities.
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Easy-to-use yet advanced
definition of orientations
• A key element of the definition of
composite materials is the proper
orientation of the fibers
• ANSYS Composite PrepPost uses a
concept of oriented element-sets:
– user can define material application
direction and material 0° direction
– Multiple oriented element-sets can
be overlapping and differently
oriented: unique definition of
asymmetric laminate
– One or several coordinate systems
assigned to an oriented element-
set: no need for ply-subdivision
– Cartesian, cylindrical and spherical
systems are supported
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Defining laminate areas
• Laminates and associated
orientations are defined on
zones (element groups)
• Zones can be applied a pre-
defined laminate
• Additional Laminates can be
constructed by progressive
stacking on zones
• Support for layer drop-off
• Easy generation of solid model
based on shell model (suitable
for thick laminate analysis)
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Visualization of stacking sequences
• Stacking
sequences and
composite
thicknesses
can be
displayed on
arbitrary
sections or on
the entire
model
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Computing the model’s solution
• The ANSYS Composite Prep/Post uses the ANSYS
Mechanical solutions to compute the base solution of
the model.
• All advantages of our core solutions are therefore
available:
– Support of the latest element generation: linear and
quadratic shells, linear and quadratic solids
– Layered element formulation
– Isotropic, orthotropic and anisotropic material models
– Fast and accurate solver
– Multiple time steps support
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General post-processing
• Arbitrarily configurable envelope contour
failure plots
• Overlay Text-plots for easy identification of
the relevant failure-modes
• Generate superposition load cases based
on initial load cases
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Failure Analysis
• ANSYS Composite PrepPost provides a unique
set of failure criteria to analyze the product:
– From simple criteria (max stress) to state-of-
the art analysis (Puck, Hashin, Cuntze)
– Interlaminar shear, normal stresses for shells
– Through thickness failure for shells
– Combination of failure criteria provides failure
envelope
– 3D implementation of main criteria (Tsai-Hill,
Hashin, Puck etc.)
– Ability to create user-defined criteria
• Results can be displayed as:
– Most critical failure criteria
– Critical layer
– Reserve, inversed reserve factors and safety
margin (based on stress limits)
– Standard results (stresses….) per layer
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Draping and flat-wrap
• ANSYS Composite PrepPost
provides draping functionality to
analyze for drapability as well as
for calculation of the fiber-angle
correction
• Further ANSYS Composite
PrepPost can also provide the
flat-wrap of plies with their
distortion
• Flatwrap boundaries export to
STEP or IGES format
Flat-wrap
Draping
Correction of the element orientation after draping
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Plybook generation
• A set of plies or
all plies are
selected for ply-
book
generation.
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Additional capabilities
• Python scripting capabilities provide full
automation for the setup of the composite
models.
• ANSYS Composite PrepPost can update the
model definition upon design changes
without the need to redefine the entire model
through a simple update of the input mesh.
© 2009 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved. 18 ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary© 2009 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved. 18 ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary
Summary
© 2009 ANSYS, Inc. All rights reserved. 19 ANSYS, Inc. Proprietary
Summary
• Dedicated to allow for easy and efficient definition and
modification of layered-composite structures as well as their
specific post-processing
• Dedicated to provide leading-edge technology in pre- and
postprocessing of layered composite structures
• Integrates with Mechanical Simulation as well as with
Mechanical APDL
• Provides failure assessment as well as manufacturing
information such as draping and plybooks.