Objective: Size Zones with many different Laminate Families, evaluate the resulting weight and producibility, then choose a Laminate Family that is best for those Zones.
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HyperX’s Laminate Family Design Study tool is used to analyze weight and manufacturability trends resulting from different Drop Patterns, Ply Shapes and Main Stacking Sequences (MSS). Read more here.
The steps below guide the user through the process of evaluating Laminate Families and choosing the "best" Family for the use case. The "best" Family is obviously subjective and depends on the user's preference of weight vs producibility, since it is usually impossible to find a Family that excels in both categories. The purpose of the Laminate Family Design Study is to identify Pareto-Optimal Families to ensure that the lowest possible weight is achieved when selecting a Family with a target level of producibility, as shown in the example Pareto frontier below.
Important
The Design Study results are highly dependent on running loads and are therefore only valid for the Zones on which they were run.
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The Laminate Families to be used in the study must be in the current Database. The process described in Automatically Generate a Laminate Family for Solid Laminate or Sandwich can be used to generate many different Families that are tuned for the target Zones.
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A Composite Laminate or Sandwich Design Property must be assigned to the Zones to be used in the study.
Multiple Laminate Families must be assigned to the Design Property used on the target Zones.
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Open the Design Property.
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Right-click on the Material field of the Design Property.
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Click "Select Laminate Family".
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Choose as many Laminate Families as desired for the study.
Select the Zones to be considered in the Design Study. The selected Zones must have the Design Property from the previous step assigned to them.
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Ensure that the "Zones" and "Designs" fields are populated with Zones selected in the Viewport.
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Verify the list of Families under "Input Laminate Families".
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Click the "Run Trials" button to kick off the Sizing process for all Families.
Results will be populated in the table and plot as Sizing with each Family is completed. Clicking on a result in either the plot or the table will highlight that Family in both. Additionally, more data is displayed at the bottom of the form for the selected Family.
Selecting a Laminate Family from the Design Study results is dependent on the user's preference for weight vs producibility; there is usually not a clear "winner." However, it is highly recommended to choose a Family on the Pareto frontier, which is indicated by the cyan line on the weight vs producibility plot. These Families are Pareto-optimal, meaning that for each Family it is impossible to choose another Family which has an improvement in one metric without sacrificing performance in the other metric.
The user has two options (buttons at the bottom of the form) once a Family is selected:
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Make Design - Create a copy of the Design Property currently assigned to the Zones and assign the selected Laminate Family to that new Design Property.
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Update Design - Will clear the multiple Laminate Families assigned to the Design Property and replace them with the Family that is currently selected in the form.
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Perform Detailed Sizing with the selected Laminate Family.
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Perform Sequencing to generate final Plies.