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Curved CFRP Composite Wing-Spar L-Bracket (3D Orthotropy & Surface Coordinate Projection)
14-face 3D B-Rep curved carbon-fiber/epoxy wing-spar bracket solved with 9-constant 3D orthotropic elasticity and per-element Ansys-style guide surface normal projection.
Curved composite primary structures such as wing-spar brackets cannot be modeled accurately with fixed global Cartesian material axes because the carbon fibers follow the curved mold surface. Using WebCAE's Ansys-style surface coordinate projection (`orientation surface number 33 axis=1,0,0 angle=30`), each of the 5,724 tetrahedral elements builds an orthonormal material triad (e_x, e_y, e_z) at its centroid: e_z aligns with the outward normal of the nearest boundary triangle on the R = 110 mm curved back face (`surface number 33`), e_x projects the reference X-axis onto the tangent plane rotated by θ = 30°, and e_y = e_z × e_x.
1. Geometry & FEA Mesh
- •3D B-Rep CAD model (`cfrp_spar_bracket.step`, 14 CAD faces, 36 edges, volume 210.07 cm³, dimensions 140 × 60 × 80 mm).
- •Unidirectional carbon/epoxy composite: E₁ = 140 GPa, E₂ = E₃ = 10 GPa, ν₁₂ = 0.30, ν₂₃ = 0.40, ν₁₃ = 0.30, G₁₂ = G₁₃ = 5.0 GPa, G₂₃ = 3.5 GPa.
- •5,724 TET4 elements (1,588 nodes) with 5,724/5,724 element orientation triads.
2. Loads & Boundary Conditions
- •Base mounting flange face (`surface number 27`) and M10 bolt holes (`surface number 34, 35`) fully fixed.
- •Local element orientation projected onto curved outer guide face (`surface number 33`) with fiber layup angle θ = 30°.
- •Tensile traction σ = 45 MPa (`load surface number 39 pressure=-45e6`) applied to the upper clevis tip pad.
3. Simulation Results & Findings
- ✓Local fiber-direction stress reaches σ₁₁_max = 2,286.75 MPa while transverse matrix stress is σ₂₂_max = 410.75 MPa (5.57× anisotropy load-sharing ratio).
- ✓Equivalent von Mises stress reaches 1,380.99 MPa at the curved elbow transition with peak tip deflection |u|_max = 12.994 mm.
- ✓Solved in 1.87 s (574 PCG iterations) with full 3D stress tensor transformation into the local material frame.
WebCAE brings Ansys-grade 3D solid element coordinate projection and 9-constant orthotropic elasticity to browser and desktop workflows for composite aerospace and automotive parts.
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- ✓Nonlinear Contact & Buckling (Kσ, MITC4, RBE2/RBE3)
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