Creating a 3D Multi-Splice for Plies

1. Click the Create 3D Multi-Splice  icon .
   The 3D Multi-Splice dialog box is displayed.
   

2. In the Entity field, select the plies to which you want to apply a 3D Multi-Splice.
   In our example, we selected Ply.20 to Ply.30.
   

   By default, the check boxes Material and Direction in the Multi selection dialog box are not selected. You can make the selection of plies easier by filtering them on a material and/or direction criterion. If the filter is set to a particular material/direction, the multi-splice will be generated only on the entities with these selected material/direction.

3. Choose the From 3D Curve selection mode:

   This option allows splicing with curves lying on the ply/plies group surface. Click and select Line.1 and Line.2 and set the values for the Staggering Direction and the Overlap Direction as shown below. Curves must be selected in the right order. The Directions are previewed in the 3D geometry. This is the option proposed by default.

• This option allows splicing with curves from the flattened view of ply. This provides the best material utilization and minimize the cross cutting of fiber on the cutpiece edge. This is useful for Composites part made using unidirectional material for thick part (spars,…).
  • With this option, selected entities must share the same flatten plane, e.g. if you select a plies group, selection will be validated only if all the plies inside the plies group share the same flatten plane. Otherwise, a message refusing the selection is displayed.
  • Once the entity selection is validated, all the plies have the same flatten plane. Only curves lying on that plane can be selected as splicing curves.
  • Parallels to selected curves will be generated on the flatten plane and the Parallel Mode field will be disabled.
  • The input curve is transferred to 3D.
    
    The new curve on 3D is used to generate the multi-splice.
    
    Geometry transfer from 2D to 3D is based on whether unfold geometry or regular flattening is done:
    • If the plies have regular flattening defined under the flatten body, the options specified in the producibility used for creating the flattening will be applied to 2D to 3D Geometry transfer, e.g. if flattening is created using thickness update option, the same will be used for 2D to 3D transfer of selected splicing curve.
    • If the plies have unfold defined under the flatten body, options used during unfold creation will be used.
  • If a thickness update is done:
    • a straight line selected in 2D will not be a straight line in 3D. But for manufacturing purpose, the flatten view will be correct.
    • Due to tessellation during the geometry transfer and flattening operation, when flattening a cut piece, there may be a deviation between the selected curve for the 2D splicing and the contour edge of the flattened cut piece.

4. Define the Staggering Value and the Overlap Value with the up and down arrows as shown below.
   

5. Select a Parallel Mode:
   

6. If required, select the Repeat Staggering check box: this option lets you reuse computed parallels to generate multi-splice.

   Enter a repeat value. If the repeat value is specified as N, the staggering step will be reset to 1 after staggering N steps. For example, if there are 10 plies selected, and the repeat value is specified as 4 then the first 4 plies will have the staggering step 1,2,3,4, then the plies from 6 to 8 will have the staggering step as 1,2,3,4 and plies 9 and 10 will have the staggering step as 1,2 respectively.

4. If required, select the Offset value check box and enter an offset value.

6. Click OK.
   The specification tree is updated accordingly.
   

3D Multi-Splice on Cylindrical Plies

1. Click the Creates 3D Multi-Splice  icon .

2. In the Entity field, select the cylindrical plies on your part.
   

3. Click the Multi-selection icon at the right of the Splicing Curves field and select the curves on the geometry.
   

4. Define the Staggering Value and the Overlap Value with the up and down arrows.

5. Click OK to create the splices on the cylindrical plies.

The 3D Multi-Splice feature is created and includes:

• the selected plies,
• the splicing curves,
• the staggering value,
• a staggering direction per curve,
• the overlapping value,
• an overlapping direction per curve.

Sub-plies (also called cut-pieces) are created under each ply and have the following characteristics:

• they inherit the material and direction of the ply,

• their contour is associative with the father ply geometry in the following cases:

  • the ply surface is modified,

  • the ply geometry is modified e.g. the boundaries of the plies are modified or a limit contour is applied to the ply,

  Note however that the number of cut-pieces is not modified during the update of the part, e.g.:

  Original situation

  Situation after update

  Curve 2 no longer intersects the father ply geometry The limit contour feature of cut-piece 3 will have an update error You must delete the cut-piece manually.

• they have their own rosette and producibility feature,
• they have their own geometry and can be modified individually,
• They are taken in account in the following commands:
  Ply exploder
  Limit contour
  Core sampling
  Numerical analysis
  Material excess
  Skin swapping
  Creates manufacturing Document
  Synchronizes this document
• they can be used for any manufacturing export,
• they can be transferred in the manufacturing model if generated in the engineering model.