Adding Material to Plies Manually

This task shows you how to add material to plies, to solve manufacturing constraints.

Adding material to a ply reverts to merging a 4-side polyhedron to the ply contour, e.g.:

resulting in

or resulting in

 

  • The red line represents the Minimum length,
  • α represents the Shape angle,
  • β represents the Fiber draping angle.
  • Lateral staggering is shown below:
  • The blue line represents the material width, which is not imposed.
    Hence cases like the following one are not supported:
Open the AddMaterial01.CATPart document.
 
 

  1. Click Material Addition in the Plies toolbar.
    The Material Addition dialog box is displayed:

  2. Pick the vertices of the plies to be modified.

    The dialog box is updated:

     

  3. Select one of the Usual Shapes icon to initialize the addition of material:
    : Adds a rectangular shape to the ply, with a 45/135 degrees draping angle, a 90 degrees shape angle, and both sides positioning (rectangle) for all vertices.

    : Adds a triangular shape to the ply, with a 45/135 degrees draping angle, a 90 degrees shape angle, and one side positioning (triangle) for all vertices.

    : Adds a triangular shape to the ply, with a normal return to contour, a 45/135 degrees draping angle, a shape angle that ensures a normal return, and one side positioning (triangle) for all vertices. The return angle may be more than 90 degrees.

    		 ;

 

  1. When adding a triangular shape, click Other side if you need to change the side where the material is added.

  2. Click Preview.
    The polyhedron is visualized on the last selected ply.

    The parameters modification applies to this ply.
    You can define different parameters for the plies listed in the dialog box.
    Those parameters are editable: The display of the polyhedron is updated in the 3D window as you modify the parameters.
    Messages are displayed when the computation of the added material is not possible or requests your attention.

  3. If a better balance of material addition is required, select the Force alternate side check box.
    • If Force alternate side is not selected, the material is added always on the same side.
    • If Force alternate side is selected, the material is added on one side, then on the other.

  4. Define the Fiber draping angle:
    • Either type the angle value,
    • Or select the Direction option and then select a curve.

    Below the angle has been changed from 45 to 60 degrees:

  5. If necessary, modify the Minimum length:

    • Minimum length=100:
    • Minimum length=200:

  6. Define the Shape angle.

    • Either as a Fixed angle:
    • Or as an Angle from original ply contour vertex:

  7. Define the Limit angle, that is the minimum value for the Shape angle.

  8. Define the value of the Lateral staggering (represented by the double-headed arrows below).

  9. If you need to minimize ply crossing, select Turn off.
    • If Turn off is not selected, the lateral staggering is computed.
    • If Turn off is selected, no lateral staggering is selected, only the minimum cut length is taken into account.
    • Be aware that turning the lateral staggering off is different from setting it to 0.

  10. Optional: Modify the Positioning:

    • Either click one preview line in the 3D window,
    • Or click Next in the dialog box.

    The material addition preview is positioned at the next possible location.

  11. Click OK when you are done.
    The Material addition is created in the 3D window as well as in the specification tree.