Important: The settings on the Fabrication Criteria form will affect the Rapid Sizing and Set Variables operations. See Analysis and Sizing Methods.
This slider bar has four settings that provide different levels of discretization in the optimization performed by rapid sizing. The slider bar controls both the Fabrication Options and the Cross Section Ratios. The default slider bar settings are tuned to provide a fast optimization at level 1 and a rigorous optimization at level 4. Any changes made to the Fabrication Options or the Cross Section Ratios for a particular slider bar setting will be saved under that slider setting.
The Fabrication Options control the types of stiffener laminates that are generated when the rapid sizing or Set Variables is run operation is run. The user can specify how the composite stiffener is actually manufactured, limiting or expanding the variety of designs that is explored. During rapid sizing or Set Variables, each option is considered. The "Preferred" selection is the option that is considered first.
Important: That the Fabrication Options only exist for composites.
The R ratios are used to determine the optimum stiffened panel cross sectional dimensions when rapid sizing or Set Variables is run. These non-dimensional ratios are use in place of the min/max dimensions in the detailed sizing mode of operation (see Optimization Methodology for details). The ratios work by defining the relative size of different parts of the stiffener, such as top flange width versus bottom flange width. This provides the user with control over a range of shapes the stiffener may take without restricting the size of the stiffeners, which allows the user to apply domain-specific knowledge and still obtain a low weight solution.
The Cross Sectional Ratios are implemented by defining a preferred value followed by a min, max, and number of steps. The rapid sizing process will attempt to find feasible solutions using the preferred values first. If no feasible solutions are found, the min/max/steps inputs are used create a grid of R Ratio combinations to check. For example, a stiffener with 6 ratios set to 3 steps each would have 36 =729 available combinations of R Ratios.
See Advanced Fabrication Criteria Settings.
