Objective: Perform Sizing with a Laminate Family.
The quickest and most robust Sizing approach recommended by Collier Aerospace engineers is sizing with Laminate Families - where the optimum Sizing result for each Zone is chosen from a predefined selection of Candidate Laminates. Since a Laminate Family consists of Laminates that are related to one another, a design with optimum weight and manufacturability is obtained in less steps.
One way or another, a Laminate Family must exist in the Database in order to size with it. Any Laminate Families that exist in the Database will be listed Laminate Family Library for review.
To get Laminate Family(s), you can:
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Manually define a Laminate Family in HyperX. See Create a Laminate Family.
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Import a previously defined Laminate Family from a spreadsheet or another HyperX Database. See Import a Laminate Family.
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Use HyperX to automatically generate Laminate Family(s)...
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Generate from Preliminary Sizing Results
Generate from Angle Targets (particularly useful for Double/Doubles)
Tip
This is the recommended approach when you do not have a company or program-specific Laminate Family for Sizing.
If you have multiple Laminate Families to choose from, try running a Laminate Family Design Study to quickly determine which family best meets your goals for both weight and producibility.
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'Laminate Family' is an option under the 'Material' design variable. To select one from the Library, right-click in the Material field and choose 'Select Laminate Family.'
Note
This step will be done automatically if you used Set Variables in Step #1.
For the best Sequencing results, make sure to request several designs in the "Req. Designs" field at the bottom of the Design Property form. HyperX will 'save off' as many viable designs are requested for each Zone, ensuring more options for the Sequencing algorithm.
Assign this Design Property to desired Zones.
Make sure all Zones have a Load Property and an Analysis Property. Select the Zones with the Laminate Family Design Property and Size them.
HyperX has several tools for visualizing and digesting Sizing results. See Tools for Viewing Results for an overview. For this type of Sizing, the following two tools (and their corresponding settings) are commonly used:
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Legend - The Legend is used to plot Zone-based results directly on the model. In this case, some of the more useful Legend plots can be found under "Sizing Results". See:
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Sizing Results > Laminates > Total Ply Count (ply count results on each Zone)
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Sizing Results > Materials (see which Laminate from the Family was selected for each Zone)
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Design Results - View individual Design Results for each Zone. The Design Results form is particularly useful for Laminate Families. Use the right-click menu to open the form for an individual Zone. Here, you can view the selected Laminate from the Family for that Zone. You can also tune this result by right-clicking in the Material section and clicking 'Edit'.
The resulting form will show you exactly which Laminate from the Family was selected, within the context of the Family. From here, you can select a different Laminate or add/remove Plies in order to adjust the Laminate as desired.
Fabrication Rules
The Fabrication Rules form allows users to specify full Structure Plies - Plies that must always exist (either Zones Sized with this Design Property, Laminate Families being generated, or Discrete Laminates being generated).
Ply Angle Limits
The Ply Angle Limits Form is used to set constraints on the Laminates that may be generated or considered when Sizing.
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Once Zones have discretely defined Laminate stacks as Sizing results, they can be Sequenced across Zone boundaries to generate a set of Global Plies. See Sequencing.
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Generate Stress Reports to summarize all stress data and Design Results corresponding to the latest solution. See Stress Reports.