A Sensor evaluates global results such as price, weight, or area. You can evaluate results for specific entities, including element sets, materials, plies, and solid models.
The evaluation runs separately for each selected element and accounts for ply offsets to ensure accuracy. If offset accuracy is important, use quadratic shell elements. Linear shell elements cannot represent geometric curvature and may produce less accurate results.
The Sensor Properties dialog contains the following options:
Name: Name of the Sensor.
Active: Set to false to suppress the Sensor computations.
Sensor Type: Define the evaluation type.
Sensor by Area: Select one or several Element Sets or Oriented Selection Sets.
Sensor by Material: Select Fabric(s), Stackup(s) and/or Sublaminates. If a Fabric is selected, the plies in the Sublaminates are also considered in the evaluation; plies in a Stackup are not.
Sensor by Modeling Ply: Select one or more plies.
Sensor by Solid Model: Select one or more solid models. For a solid model sensor type, only weight and center of gravity are computed.
Entities: Select the corresponding entities by clicking them in the Tree.
Measure: Display results of different quantities.
Weight: Mass of the selected entity.
Covered Area: Surface area of a selected Element Set, Oriented Selection Set, or tooling surface area that is covered by the composite layup of the selected Material or Modeling Ply. This value reflects the area of the selected shell elements without ply offset.
Modeling Ply Area: Surface area of all Modeling Plies of the selected entity. The calculation includes ply offset.
Production Ply Area: Surface area of all Production Plies of the selected entity. The calculation includes ply offset.
Price: Price for the composite lay-up of the selected entity. The price per area is set under Material Data > Fabrics or Material Data > Stackups.
Center of Gravity: Center of gravity of the selected entity in the global coordinate system. The calculation includes ply offset.