II.2.3 Manipulating entities stored in a ClaDb

The ClaDb class provides three methods to insert objects in the collections, and three methods to retrieve objects stored in the collections:

• “insertMaterial” makes a copy of the ClaMat argument and inserts it into the materials collection.
• “eraseMaterial” removes the specified material from the stored materials collection. The argument is an identifier corresponding to the material to be retrieved.
• “‘getMaterialsNbr” returns the number of materials stored in the materials collection.
• “getMaterialCopy” returns a copy of a material stored in the materials collection. The argument is an identifier corresponding to the material to be retrieved.
• “insertLaminate” makes a copy of the ClaLam argument and inserts it into the laminates collection.
• “eraseLaminate” removes the specified laminate from the stored laminates collection. The argument is an identifier corresponding to the laminate to be retrieved.
• “‘getLaminatesNbr” returns the number of laminates stored in the laminates collection.
• “getLaminateCopy” returns a copy of a ClaLam stored in the laminates collection. The argument is an identifier corresponding to the laminate to be retrieved.
• “reInitAllPliesAccelMatrices” re-initializes the ply acceleration matrices of all the laminates stored in the dataBase. (See sections II.4.8.2 and II.1.9.2 for more information.)
• “insertLoad” makes a copy of the ClaLoad argument and inserts it into the loads collection.
• “eraseLoad” removes the specified load from the stored loads collection. The argument is an identifier corresponding to the load to be retrieved.
• “‘getLoadsNbr” returns the number of loads stored in the loads collection.
• “getLoadCopy” returns a copy of a ClaLoad object stored in the loads collection. The argument is an identifier corresponding to the load to be retrieved.

The six methods described above create copies of the entities they store to, or retrieve from the ClaDb.

Internally, the ClaDb manages 3 associative containers that associate identifiers to materials, laminates or loads respectively. When an object is stored into the ClaDb, the key which allows to retrieve the object is the identifier one attributed to it with the “Id” attributes. (See Chapters II.3 to II.5.) Note that the identifier used to retrieve an object from the ClaDb must match exactly the key to which the object is associated. For example, if the identifier of a load is [17,"QS_and_bending"], then 17 or "QS_and_bending" will not allow to retrieve a copy of the object. [17,"QS_and_bending"] must be used as argument of the ‘getMaterialCopy” method.

When a ClaLam object is stored into the ClaDb, its properties are calculated automatically. (Stiffness matrix and vector.)

Note also that when a CLA object is extracted from the database, or inserted into the database, the object keeps the units that are attributed to it. These units may be different than the database units. (See also section II.2.4.)