Reading a section
AddPly's thickness section draws the local stack along a cut, ply by ply, at declared thickness with no magnification: each step is a ply (or pair) ending, the gaps are holes; sweeping the cut across the spar moves the steps (rails and pads have their own boundaries); exploded layers separate them.
Predict · at 0:45 in the video
In a section, what does a ply drop look like?
A step: one ply end, and the plies above it closing over. Slide the cut across the spar, and the steps move, because each rail and pad has its own boundary. Here, from sixty-four to three hundred and thirty-six millimetres across.
This course is our own. These books go deeper.
- Basic Mechanics of Laminated Composite Plates, A. T. Nettles, NASA Reference Publication 1351, 1994
- Mechanics of Composite Materials, R. M. Jones, Taylor & Francis, 2nd ed., 1999
- Engineering Mechanics of Composite Materials, I. M. Daniel & O. Ishai, Oxford University Press, 2nd ed., 2006
- Design and Analysis of Composite Structures, C. Kassapoglou, Wiley, 2nd ed., 2013
- Composite Materials Handbook (CMH-17), Volume 3, Rev. G, CMH-17, SAE International, 2012
The course designs in AddPly, our browser app for laminate design: regions, ply stacks with live stacking-rule checks, thickness, mass and the ply book, plus hosted drape studies and linear FEA with maximum-stress screening, within their stated limits. The lessons teach the theory behind those on our own simulations, so you can judge the results. AddPly needs an Addcomposites sign-in.
Simulations in this lesson are our own. Ply data come from the datasheet or textbook named on screen; where a number rests on an assumption, the video says so.
