Overview

Welcome to the Composites Link User's Guide!
This guide is intended for users who need to become quickly familiar with the product.
This overview provides the following information:

Composites Link in a Nutshell

Composites Link allows the seamless transfer of composites models between analysis and design.
  • The initial zone model is imported into CATIA to create Zone descriptions of the model.
  • The designer transforms these zones into a detailed ply model.
    The ply model incorporates manufacturing requirements and detailed features like ply drop-offs.
  • As the designer has effectively changed the initial model, it is essential to re-analyse the detailed model.
    Therefore, plies are exported to the analysis environments via a Layup (or Nastran, ANSYS CDB or XML) file, and the analyses re-run using the updated ply model.
  • If the detailed ply model no longer meets analysis requirements, the analyst can add plies in the analysis environment as required.
  • Finally, any update is imported back into CATIA so the designers can update the reference model.

Before Reading this Guide

Before reading this guide, you should be familiar with basic Version 5 concepts such as document windows, standard and view toolbars. Therefore, we recommend that you read the Infrastructure User's Guide that describes generic capabilities common to all Version 5 products. It also describes the general layout of V5 and the interoperability between workbenches.

Getting the Most Out of this Guide

To get the most out of this guide, we suggest that you start reading the User Tasks section, which deals with handling all the product functions.
The Workbench Description section, which describes the Composites Design workbench, will also certainly prove useful to find your way around the Composites Design workbench.
Navigating in the Split View mode is recommended. This mode offers a framed layout allowing direct access from the table of contents to the information.

Accessing Sample Documents

To perform the scenarios, sample documents are provided all along this documentation. For more information on accessing sample documents, refer to Accessing Sample Documents in the Infrastructure User's Guide.

Conventions Used in this Guide
To learn more about the conventions used in this guide, please refer to Conventions section.