Extracting Top/Bottom Ply Stresses in Composite Shells

[Lucas7834]

Hi everyone,

I am currently working with composite shell elements and I am facing an issue regarding the extraction of ply stresses.

Specifically, I need to extract the individual ply stresses because I want to use them for a Puck failure analysis. However, I am struggling to find the right output variables to get the stress tensor for each specific layer. I have already tried using SHELL_ORTHOTROPIC_STRESS_TOP_SURFACE and SHELL_ORTHOTROPIC_STRESS_BOTTOM_SURFACE. Unfortunately, these variables only provide the top and bottom stresses of the entire laminate global stack, rather than the stresses for each individual ply.

Additionally, I looked into SHELL_ORTHOTROPIC_4PLY_THROUGH_THICKNESS, but from what I can see, this output seems to be limited to shear stresses and restricted to a maximum of 4 layers, which does not work for my layup and the Puck criterion.

What options do I have to extract the full stress state for each individual ply without having to define or create a completely new output variable?

Thank you in advance for your help, and I look forward to your suggestions!

Best regards