Reference plane location

When you create a laminate, the software sets the reference plane automatically to the midplane of the laminate. You can offset your ply layup in the element normal direction, with respect to the reference plane. You may want to do this, for example, when modeling a laminated structure where the location of the bottom surface of the bottom ply is better defined than the location of the laminate's mid plane. In this case, it is more convenient to set the Reference Plane Location to Bottom.

When the reference plane is the midplane of the laminate, the bottom fiber distance value is -T/2, where T is the thickness of the laminate. You can also set the reference plane to either the top of the laminate (bottom fiber distance value of -T) or the bottom of the laminate (bottom fiber distance value of 0). Finally, you can select an arbitrary bottom fiber distance. If you do this, you must manually adjust this value each time you modify the thickness of the layup.

Example:

This example explains the sign convention for the bottom and top distances. The thickness of the laminate in this example is T = 0.6

Topzbottom = - T = - 0.6ztop = 0	Middlezbottom = - T/2 = - 0.3ztop = T/2 = 0.3	Bottomzbottom = 0ztop = T = 0.6	Specify****Bottom Fiber Distance = - 0.1zbottom = - 0.1ztop = 0.5

Using the shell's outward normal (1) as the positive direction:

• The bottom fiber distance is negative (2) if the bottom of the laminate is in the negative direction from the reference plane.

• The bottom fiber distance is positive (3) if the bottom of the laminate is in the positive direction from the reference plane.

Symmetry is established with respect to the reference plane. If the ply layup is symmetric, but the reference plane is offset from the laminate midplane, the laminate is not considered to be symmetric.

For non-symmetric laminates, membrane loads result in additional moments.

For ANSYS and Abaqus, the Reference Plane Location is always exported at the midplane of the laminate.

How do I

Define a reference plane location

Specify a user-defined failure theory

Learn more

Defining laminate properties

Defining plies and a stacking sequence

Validating laminate properties and strength

Advanced post processing of laminate results

Predefined laminate physical property (Simcenter Samcef)

Look up more details

Stacking recipe

Relationship between shell mesh and reference plane

Symmetric and balanced laminate

Predefined Laminate Physical Property dialog box (Simcenter Samcef)

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Related Topics

Laminates failure analysis

Reference plane location, Simcenter 3D 2021.1 Series

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