II am working with composite materials manufactured by vacuum bag and I want to simulate the mechanical behavior of these materials. However, I believe that the elastic properties of the laminae from the Ansys library are always much higher than the elastic properties of the material I manufacture.
Personally I would not trust the properties in the ANSYS library for any composites. They are based on handbook values, which are most commonly from samples fabricated under ideal conditions. So, to be safe, it is always best to make up some samples using the fiber/resin system and manufacturing techniques you are going to employ in the part, and test those samples to obtain properties that you can use in simulations.
Ned Patton Thank you very much for your answer! Another question I have is: can I perform a mechanical test according to ASTM D3039 standards to obtain E1 and E2 for a lamina, or do I need to conduct a mechanical test on a single lamina?
D3039 assumes a balanced laminate, so you need to have the entire ply stack for the test - as long as you are making a quasi-isotropic laminate. If you are doing something unbalanced, you will need to find another test - or design something yourself.
thanks Ned Patton But how we are going extract the mechanical properties (E1 and E2) for ONE ply lamina from this coupon test results?