About the Virtual Stacking Dialog Box

Managing the virtual stacking is done through several dialog boxes and a tool palettes.

Please note:

  • If modifying sequences leads to the creation or removal of plies, a warning message is issued.
  • Sequences that follow each other, with the same orientation and the same material, and that do not overlap, are merged. A warning is displayed if such a merge occurs.
 

Virtual Stacking Main Dialog Box

This is the main dialog box of the virtual stacking management.
By default, it is displayed this way:

  • It can be resized.
  • It contains a 2D viewer
  • You can zoom in and out and pan this 2D viewer using V5 standard commands.
  • This 2D viewer displays cells with background colors that correspond to the ply orientation colors.
  • If you place the cursor over a cell in the 2D viewer, you are given information about that cell, e.g. the sequence or the ply the cell belongs to, its material, its orientation, its name:

Entity Level and View Mode

Combine the Entity level and the View mode to retrieve and visualize the information you need.

 

Review

 Lets you review the rows  and the columns of the 2D Viewer
(i.e. move from column to column or from row to row).

The names displayed below the arrows are the either the name of the ply or sequence, and the title of the column.
Those names are also displayed when you pick a cell in the 2D Viewer.

Symmetry Management

Lets you manage the symmetry in the virtual stacking management.

By default, Lock symmetry is not selected.
Select Lock symmetry to automatically report the modifications you make on the upper plies to their symmetry counterparts (plies greyed in the lower part of the table, under the symmetry axis).

Symmetry is available on the outer layers, not inside the stacking:

The description of the tools palette below indicates how Lock symmetry is taken into account.
For better performances, Toggle cells or its equivalent double-click does not start the recomputation of all symmetric layers:

  • Click Refresh to force this recomputation when necessary,
  • or select Automatic refresh for an automatic recomputation (when performances are not an issue).
  • Click Reorder plies from seq to reorder plies contained in symmetrical sequences so that they also become symmetrical.
    Reorder plies from seq is available when Lock symmetry is selected with Entity level set to Ply.

All other sub-commands start an automatic recomputation of the symmetric layers.
Changing the Entity level or the View mode starts an automatic recomputation of the symmetric layers because:

  • symmetry can be different in Sequence or Ply level,
  • symmetry is not different in Cells or Stacking areas view mode, but the recomputation updates the upper and lower symmetric layers.

Stacking Area Management

Lets you manage the stacking areas.

  • Prevent Auto Computation: When selected, de-activates the automatic re-computation of the stacking areas when you exit one of the Virtual Stacking Management sub-commands. By default, it is not selected.
  • Reorder: reorder the stacking areas according to the number of cells covered (from the greatest to the smallest stacking area). Note that the Stacking Area are not renamed.
  • Selecting one of those check boxes makes the other one inactive.

Undo/redo

Lets you undo/redo virtual stacking actions.

Display Info Table


By default, this check box is not selected. When selected it displays a second information table:

If the current thickness law is different from the stress thickness law, the cell will be colored:

  • in red if the current number of plies is lower than the stress,
  • in yellow if the current number of plies is greater than the stress.
  • Stacking areas are computed from the cells that share the same stacking sequence and are dynamically updated.

Import/Export Management

Lets you import/export information.

Click More to access export and import functionalities:

Export:

  • Click ... at the end of the Export to file line
  • Use the file browser to enter the path and name of the Virtual Stacking file you want to export.
    You can export the data to a .xls file or to a .txt file.
  • Click Export.
  • The file is exported and takes the Entity level and the View mode into account as follows:
     
  • A message informs you whether the export has been successful or not.
  • If the number of columns required is greater than 256, the export result will be written over several worksheets..
  • In Stacking areas view mode, the list of the cells corresponding to each stacking area is added to the .xls file.
  • Export to .xls file does not export the background colors of the cells.

Import:

  • click ... at the end of the Import from file line.
  • use the file browser that is displayed to locate the file you will import.
  • click Import. A message informs you that import has been succesfull.
  • the display mode is updated according to the .xls file imported.
  • if you have changed the names or materials of plies or sequences,
    this will be detected and processed by Synchronize stacking.
  • A message informs you whether the import has been successful or not.

Highlight Real Sequence of Ply (when available)

This option is selected by default. It highlights the real sequence in the 3D Viewer when a line is selected in the 2D Viewer. When this option is not selected, the cells, not the sequence, are displayed.

Display 3D Information
  • Highlights in the 3d viewer and in the 2D viewer of the dialog box are linked::
    • Highlighting a row (ply or sequence) in the 2D viewer highlights the corresponding cells in the 3D viewer (in the ply/sequence orientation color).
      Multi-selection is available, although overlapping areas may exist in the 3D viewer.
    • Highlighting a column (stacking area or cell) in the 2D viewer highlights the corresponding cells in the 3D viewer (in a random color different from that of the ply orientation).
      Multi-selection is available.
    • In Stacking area mode, selecting a cell in the 3D viewer highlights the corresponding stacking area name in the 2D viewer. Select the name in the 2D viewer to highlight the complete stacking area.

    • Display 3D information is selected by default. Deselect it if you do not need to display information in the 3D Viewer.
      Click Options to choose the display options through a dialog box:

      The option One label for identical cells makes the display of labels more comfortable:

      • One label for identical cells is not selected:
      • One label for identical cells is selected:

    Delta with grid data (when there is a delta) identifies delta as follows:

    Note that when the option One label for identical cells is selected:

    • the option Cells name is not available.
    • the option Delta with grid data (when there is a delta) is not available.
 

Tools Palette:

Provides tools to manage the virtual stacking.

When you click a command in the Tools Palette:

  • its icon turns orange, the other icons turn grey.
  • the Running Commands dialog box is displayed.
  • click the icon again to end a command, or hit Escape, or click Select.

Select:
When you start the Virtual Stacking Management, the Select command in the Tools Palette is active. Nothing happens if you click it.
When you start a command, Select is de-activated and ready to be activated again.
When you click Select, the current sub-command is ended.

Repeat applies to:

  • Cell Valuation,
  • Move Row,
  • Swap Rows,
  • Duplicate Row,
  • Cut Row,
  • Paste Row

Click Repeat. The unavailable commands are greyed.
Start a command. The other commands are greyed. The current command is marked Repeated in the Running Commands dialog box.

Merge domains: merges sequences or plies:
(This command is not available if Lock symmetry is selected.)

Create a new stacking area:
This command is not impacted by Lock symmetry.

Check ply rules:
This command is not impacted by Lock symmetry.

Single row edition (geometry and properties): See Editing a Row.
All attributes can be modified.
Lock symmetry is taken into account, except for Cell dispatch.
Orientation, material and cell coverage will be transferred to lower symmetric layers.
Cell dispatch works for non-symmetric layers or for the upper symmetric layers only.
When the Entity level is set to Ply, Material, Direction and Rosette are not available if you have selected and intend to modify only some of the plies belonging to a sequence: modifying those properties for only some plies of a sequence that contains more would lead to a sequence with several rosettes, orientations or material.

Multiple row edition (properties only):
This command is not available when Lock symmetry is selected.

All attributes can be modified.
You can change the Material, the Direction and the Rosette by choosing another one from the drop-down lists. You can also rename the sequences or the plies.
When the Entity level is set to Ply, Material, Direction and Rosette are not available if you have selected and intend to modify only some of the plies belonging to a sequence: modifying those properties for only some plies of a sequence that contains more would lead to a sequence with several rosettes, orientations or material.

Toggle cells: lets you enter or remove (the cell will be empty) a cell orientation value. This orientation is that of the row on which you have selected the cell. Multi-selection is available using the command icon, not the contextual menu. You could also double-click the cell.
Lock symmetry is taken into account.

Move row:
Works for non-symmetric layers or for the upper symmetric layers only.
Select a row in the 2D viewer, click  , select the row where you want to paste the moved one.

Swap rows:
Works for non-symmetric layers or for the upper symmetric layers only.
Click and select the two rows to swap.

Duplicate row (sequence or ply):
Click , then a row in the 2D viewer. A row, a sequence or a ply is inserted, with the name Copy of xxx.
Lock symmetry is taken into account.

Insert blank row (sequence or ply):
Lock symmetry is taken into account.
Click , then a row xx in the 2D viewer. A row, a sequence or a ply is inserted where you picked:

  • for a sequence, the name is New Seq(xx+1) .
  • for a ply, the name of the ply is New(Ply(xx+1), the name of the sequence is that of the sequence selected, the orientation name is that of the row selected and the field is greyed.

Cut Row,
Multi-selection is possible.
Lock symmetry is taken into account.

Copy Row,
Lock symmetry is taken into account.

Paste Row:
Select a row in the 2D viewer, click  or , select the row where you want to paste the cut or copied one, click .
A row, a sequence or a ply is inserted, with the name Copy of xxx.
Lock symmetry is taken into account.

Select Row from Cell.

Contextual Menus

Several contextual menus are available:

  • on a cell

     
  • on a row


    These functionalities are equivalent to those of the tools palette and are described below.
    They accept multi-selection.