Flattening Plies

Once you are satisfied with the producibility analysis result of the seeds behavior, use Flattening to flatten the plies from the 3D shape to obtain a 2D shape.

This task shows you how to:

 

See Also
More help on this topic

Select Entities

You can select the entities to flatten.

  1. Select a ply, a ply sequence, a plies group or a stacking.

    The main fiber direction (blue), draping direction (yellow), the X-axis and Y-axis of the transferred rosette are displayed, according to selected options. The red dotted axis forms a 90° angle with the main fiber orientation.

  2. Select or clear Only consider cut-pieces to determine where Flattening nodes are created.

Create Location Points

You can use several methods to select the location points.

  1. Select a plane as the flattening support.

    The X-axis and Y-axis of the plane (white), the 0° fiber direction of the flatten shape (blue) are displayed. The red dotted axis forms a 90° angle with the main fiber orientation.

  2. Select the location points.
    • Pick one single point in the work area.
    • Click to select several points.
    • Right-click Location Point to create them.
    • Select a geometrical set containing points.
    • Select a pattern of points. This is a quick way to position the flattenings.

    • Each point or vertex (for patterns) is automatically assigned to a ply or a cut-piece.
    • If there are more plies or cut-pieces than points, the plies without location point use the center of the flatten plane as location point.

Use the Location Points Creation Wizard

You can use the Location Points Creation Wizard as an alternative.

  1. Open the Location Points Creation Wizard .
  2. Verify the number of plies and cut-pieces. Their sum determines the number of location points to create.
  3. Select or create the reference point from the context menu.
    All other points are computed from this reference.
  4. Optional: Click the proposed axis to invert the orientation.
  5. Key in the Number of Flattens per Row.

  6. Key in the Minimum Clearance Value.
    The distance between points is computed as

    (Current ply size+Next ply size)/2+Minimum clearance value

    Tip: Increase Minimum Clearance Value to increase the distance between points.
  7. Select an option to create a pattern.
    • Create Rectangular Pattern.
    • Equidistant Pattern: Creates a grid of equidistant points, equivalent to a rectangular grid, from the reference point and the Number of Flattens per Row.
    • Space Optimized Pattern: Optimizes the creation of points, useful where there are large differences in the plies sizes.
    • Gather Cut-pieces of same ply in a row: Points associated with cut-pieces of the same plies are in the same row. This way, you have a clear view of the flatten bodies of plies and their cut-pieces.
      • If plies have no cut-pieces, only flattenings of plies are shown.
      • If Only consider cut-pieces is selected, plies corresponding to cut-pieces are not taken into account to compute points.
      • If Only consider cut-pieces is cleared, cut-pieces and their parent ply are in one row.
  8. Click OK in the wizard.
    The number of location points is displayed in the main dialog box.

Specify More Flatten Options

  1. Optional: Select the Transfer draping direction to plane normal check box.
    • The hand of the rosette is taken into account.
    • This avoids upside/down errors when exporting the ply data.
    • It makes the understanding of the orientations of plies on the flatten plane easier.
    The normal of the plane corresponds to the draping direction of the ply (yellow axes).

  2. Select a Flatten type and click Apply to visualize the flatten shapes.
    • With Material roll, the flatten shapes are positioned on the plane as on a material roll, according to the fiber direction represented by the axis of the plane.

    • With Unfold assembly, the flatten shapes are positioned on the plane according to the 3D positioning of the ply. There is no rotation, all plies behave as if they had a 0° orientation. It can be used as a kind of unfolded definition of the Composites part.

      The fiber direction is replaced by the rosette (green and white axes).
  3. Optional: Select the Create Flatten as Sketch check box to associate the flatten curves to the plies.
  4. Double-click the Flattening node to re Flattening and update the Flattening result.
  5. Optional: Select the Check material width check box, and click Apply.
    Diagnoses are displayed in the work area. In addition, a red or green sign appears in the dialog box to indicate if the flatten shape fits into the material roll width (green mark) or not (red mark).
  6. Select the size of the flatten rosette.

Simplify the Geometry

  1. Under Smoothing, to define how to simplify the flatten geometry, select Threshold from the list and define the related parameters.
  2. Enter the required parameters Tangency threshold, Curvature threshold, Maximum deviation, when available.
  3. Select the Topology simplification check box, if required.