M. To create an orthotropic material

To create a 2D orthotropic material definition for use with orthotropic plate elements, use the following procedure.

You may want to set the input units to a familiar set of units for defining materials before creating a new material definition.

Note: 2D orthotropic material definitions are for use with plate elements only.

Select the Materials page in the Analytical Modeling page control bar.
The Material - Whole Structure dialog and the Materials table open.
In the Material - Whole Structure dialog, select the Orthotropic 2D tab.
Click Create. The 2-D OrthoTropic Material Property dialog opens.
Type a Title for the material.
Type the material values:
1. Type the Young's Modulus and Thermal Coefficients in the X direction.
2. Type the Young's Modulus and Thermal Coefficients in the Y direction.
3. Type the Density, Critical Damping, and Poisson's Ratio values. The same values are used in both X and Y directions.
4. Type the Shear Modulus values for in-plane shear (Gxy), shear transverse to the local Y-Z direction (Gyz), and shear transverse to the local Z-X direction (Gzx).
Click Add.

The material definition is now added to the Materials table and is available for selecting when assigning shapes and in Material - Whole Structure dialog.