About Composites

Composites entities can be imported and exported.

This page discusses:

Composites can be activated under General, in the STEP Exchange section of the Preferences.

Check recommended practices, licensing and application protocol requirements in Requirements.

AP242 ed1 - At Import

  • The full stacking is kept. Ply groups, sequences, plies, cores, cut pieces are kept, as well as the contours, orientations and materials, including their material properties.
  • Filament winding is not supported.
  • STEP Composite Assembly Tables containing ply laminates or Composite Assembly constituents are not supported.
  • When found in the STEP file, the explicit representation of plies is imported and created.
    Note: The status of the Tessellated geometry option is not taken into account. All the STEP data is imported (implicit exact data and explicit data when it exists).

AP242 ed1 - At Export

  • Only the engineering stacking is taken into account.
  • The engineering stacking, which is the aggregation of the structural elements of the Composites part (Ply groups, sequences, plies, cores, and cut pieces), is kept. Ply groups, sequences, plies, cores, and cut pieces are kept, as well as their contours, orientations and materials.
  • Preliminary design data are not supported.
  • Only Composites parameters (materials, rosettes, orientations, …) used by the engineering stack are supported.
    Note: Composites parameters not used in the engineering stacking are not exported.
  • Flat pattern is not supported.
  • Analysis and simulation are not supported.
  • The explicit representation of plies is exported (as generated with the Draped Tessellated Skin representation of the Ply Exploder).
    Note: The status of the Tessellated geometry option is not taken into account:
    • Only the underlying 3D geometry (reference shell and contours) is exported according to the status of the Exact geometry as option.
    • The explicit representation of plies is exported as 3D tessellated geometry.

AP242 ed2

In addition, AP242 ed2 supports

  • Multiple rosettes (Rosette overload at ply level)
  • Cartesian rosettes represented by Cartesian_11 entity
  • Rosettes guided by curves. Information is added to curve_11 entity
    • At export, the guide curve and the 0°/90° information is added to the rosette in the STEP file. The axis system is exported, but not linked to the rosette.
    • At import, the rosette is created with the first axis system found with its origin on the rosette guide curve, X direction collinear to the curve tangent at this point in the 0° direction, and Y direction collinear to the curve tangent at this point in the 90° direction. If there is no such axis system, one is created with the same properties, and the Z direction normal to the support surface of the curve, at the origin of the curve.
  • Ply angle directly evaluated by measure_representation_item, in relation with the rosette.