Materials

Material definition.

Composite laminates are typically made up of layers of isotropic, orthotropic and/or anisotropic materials. Specific material definitions vary by solver. For example, in OptiStruct:
  • Linear isotropic material for shell and solid elements: MAT1
  • Linear orthotropic material for shell elements: MAT8
  • Linear orthotropic material for shell and solid elements: MAT9OR
  • Linear anisotropic material for solid elements: MAT9
  • Nonlinear isotropic/orthotropic/anisotropic material: See Multiscale Designer

Materials can be created from the Model Browser, the Model ribbon, or the Composite Browser. Specific solver cards and attributes can be set in the Entity Editor.

The following table displays a list of typical composite material properties.
Property Value (psi)
E1 22.0e6
E2 1.3e6
E3 1.3e6
n12 0.30
n13 0.30
n23 0.26
G12 0.75e6
G13 0.75e6
G23 0.516e6
a1 (/°F) -0.30e-6
a2 (/°F) 18.0e-6
a3 (/°F) 18.0e-6
tply (in) 0.01