Ply Drop-off in a Composite Panel

Application ID: 90431


This example illustrates the modeling of ply drop-off in a composite panel. The panel considered for the analysis has three sections–thick, taper, and thin. The thick section plies are divided into the core, top-bottom belts, and dropped plies. The thick section of the panel has sixteen plies with symmetric angle-ply layup out of which eight plies are dropped gradually in the taper section with some specified stagger distance.

The carbon-epoxy material having transversely isotropic material properties is used as a ply material. The epoxy material having isotropic material properties is used in the pockets near dropped plies. The layerwise theory based approach together with the stack zone modeling is used for the detailed representation of the ply drop scenario. A stationary analysis is performed to compute stresses in different plies in various sections of the composite panel under the applied external load.

This model example illustrates applications of this type that would nominally be built using the following products: