Defining a Zone

• Geometry
• Laminate
• Rosette

1. Click Zones .

   	In case you did not previously create a zone group, an information message is issued prompting you to create one. Click OK to start the Zone Group Definition command.
   The Zone Definition dialog box is displayed. A name is proposed by default for the zone that you can modify. In our example, we changed the name to Z1-1.

2. Select the Zones Group to contain the zone.

3. The Geometry tab lets you define a contour in the zone.

   	A zone can contain several contours.
   In the Curves of Contour.1 field, select the curves so that they form a closed contour. A green tip replaces the red cross. Use Add and Remove to add or remove a contour. Use Insert After, Before and Remove to modify the order of the curves as well as the contour.
   	The contour must fully lie on the surface.
   Should you need to create the curves for the zone contour, right-click in the curves field and create the element you need. Refer to Generative Shape Design & Optimizer User's Guide for more information.

4. ExtrapolDist lets you key in a gap tolerance to support curves that do not intersect or are not connected:
   
   This can be the case of the output curve of slicing features.
   ExtrapolDist represents the accepted extrapolation value, i.e. curvilinear distance, for the curves that do not form a closed contour.
   Its default value is 0.01 mm.
   It is stored in the specification tree:
   

5. Select the Create 3D point check box to associate a GSD point to the zone you are defining:
   
   

   This point will be used: as anchor point for the zone name tag in the 3D view, as point for an automatic core sampling for each zone. As you click OK, the 3D point will be created as the projection of the center of gravity of the zone contour onto the surface. If you re-open the dialog box, the coordinates of the 3D point will be displayed but dimmed. It is created in the specification tree: In most cases, you will not have to modify its coordinates. However, in some cases such as U-shaped zones, you may need to modify them: either by modifying the values of X, Y or Z in the specification tree, or double-clicking the point in the 3D view and editing it as any GSD point.

6. The Laminate tab lets you define the number of layers per association material / direction (thickness).
   Select the Material from the drop-down list.

   	The elements in the list were initialized when defining the materials in the Composites Parameters dialog box.

7. For each material, define the number of layers with a direction of 0, 45, etc.

8. The Rosette tab lets you define the axis (X, Y, Z) in which the directions are referenced.
   Select the axis.
   

9. Click OK in the Zone Definition dialog box to create the zone.
   The feature is added to the specification tree, under the Zones Groups.xxx node.
   You can click Check Overlapped Zones to check that the zone contour does not overlap with another zone contour.

10. Perform this scenario as many times as you need to create zones.
    In our example, we created five zones in Zones Group.1, each zone containing one contour; and two zones in Zone Groups.2, the first zone containing one contour, and the second zone containing two contours.

    Two knowledge parameters are stored under the zone, in the Laminate node. They enable you to customize the geometry used to create the zones and tapers and the associability of the zones laminate.

    • Thickness: global laminate thickness (number of layers and material thickness)

    • Layers: number of layers (addition of all layers per direction)

Selecting a Curve Twice to Create the Zone Contour

For instance, to obtain the zone contour displayed in the example below, the same curve has been selected twice.

1. Create a single curve in your part by selecting three splits and using the join functionality.

2. Click the Zones icon .

3. Select the curves to define the zone contour as shown above.
   To obtain a closed contour, you have to select twice Join.1 as the first and the fifth curve.

4. Select the Laminate you need.

5. Click OK to create the zone.