I'm trying to model a long component wrapped in a composite fabric. In the long run, many layers of fabric at different angles may be used, so I beleive a thick composite coating is the type of element I should be using.
the help documentation states that Thick Composite Elements are a type of plate elements, leading me to beleive that the tickness is measure outward from the midplane. It is also my understanding that layer 1 is defined as being at the base of the element (not the midplane). Could someone verify that for Thick composite elements the elements represent the midplane?
I am currently creating the fabric coating by duplicating the line elements on the surface of the model and defining the new elements as Thick Composite. However, I'm concern that this is causing half of the total thickness to lie inside the boundary of my model, since the elements lie at the midplane. This is fine for a thin coating, but may reduce the validity of my results as I move forward. In order to avoid this problem, I can copy the edges that I am coating, and expand them thickness/2 out from the model. Is this something I should be doing when using thick composite elements?
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