Chapter II.5
The “ClaLoad” class

The “ClaLoad” class is used to define, store and manipulate loadings to be applied to laminates. A loading is characterized by:

• The thermo-elastic loading of the laminate defined by a specified temperature.

• The membrane part of mechanical loading. Three such components $l_{xx}$, $l_{yy}$ and $l_{xy}$ are given.

• The flexural part of mechanical loading. Three such components $l_{xx}$, $l_{yy}$ and $l_{xy}$ are given.

• The out-of-plane shear part of mechanical loading. Two such components $l_{xz}$ and $l_{yz}$ are given.

• The types of solicitation for each component of the mechanical loading. This type is specified separately for each component of the mechanical loading. This means that three components are specified for the membrane part, three components for the flexural part and two components for the out-of-plane shear part. For each component, the type of solicitation can be:

  • “FM” means that normal forces are specified for a membrane component (expressed for example in N/m), bending moments for a flexural component (in Nm/m) and again a force per unit of length for out-of-plane shear (in N/m). “femFM” has the same meaning as “FM” but specifies that the load components shall be extracted from the finite element results stored in the ClaLoad object when calculating laminate load response (“Shell Forces” or “Shell Moments”).

  • “SC” means that strains are specified for membrane components (in m/m), curvature for flexural components (in 1/m), and again average shear strain for the out-of-plane shear components. Note that the shear components are given as angular components ${\gamma }_{ij}$. The $xy$ component of the curvature tensor is also a kind of angular component, as defined by equation II.1.32. “femSC” has the same meaning as “SC” but specifies that the load components shall be extracted from the finite element results stored in the ClaLoad object when calculating laminate load response (“Shell Strains” or “Shell Curvatures”, see equation II.1.32).

  • “NS” means that a normalized stress is specified for the component, regardless of which part of the loading is concerned.

  The default values of loading are of the type “FM” with zero components. This means zero normal forces, zero bending moments, and zero out-of-plane shear forces. When the laminate load response is calculated, moisture and temperature load contributions are taken into account only if they have been initialized in the ClaLoad object.

  For thermo-elastic and hygrometric parts of loading, it is also possible to specify a loading with finite element results. The type of loading is determined by the value of String first argument of “setT” and “setH” methods which can be “fem” or “noFem”.

A list of the methods defined in “ClaLoad” class is given in Table II.5.1.