The material properties outside the tabs are all entered independent of temperature. Properties with an asterisk (*) must be entered for a complete material definition. If the value is unknown, enter "NONE" in the field.
Material Name The material name defines a unique material in the database.
Bending Factor The bending factor is used to scale down the ply strain resulting from pure bending loads. For combined membrane-bending loading, the ply margins of safety are calculated by superimposing the ply strains from pure membrane load and pure bending.
Experimental data shows laminates loaded in pure bending have higher critical strains than the same laminates loaded in pure membrane. The data suggests using a pure bending strain allowable greater than the membrane strain allowable, is more accurate for failure prediction. To account for this, a bending factor is used to scale down the ply strain resulting from pure bending loads. A typical value for the bending factor is 1.3 which has been widely used in industry when test data is unavailable.
Glass Transition The glass transition temperature defines the temperature at which the composite material properties transition from stiff and brittle to soft and viscous. This entry does not affect any HyperSizer analysis; it is used to classify the material properties. (Units = °F)
The transition usually causes irreversible changes to the material properties. Generally, the stiffness of a composite material system decreases as the reference temperature approaches the glass transition temperature.