The Composites group at NPL has used LUSAS for approximately 15 years and the current version being used is specifically tailored for modelling composite materials.

LUSAS consists of LUSAS Modeller, which acts as the pre- and post- processor, and LUSAS Solver, which performs the finite element analysis. LUSAS Composite has been used for a variety of linear and non-linear problems, including adhesive lap joints, quasi-statically loaded composite plates, and bolted composite and metallic T-joint configurations. The package contains numerous material models (e.g. for metals, composites, rubbers, concrete, adhesives, volumetric crushing of foams, etc.).

Much of our recent work has involved the analysis of composite laminates in various structural applications. With knowledge of the ply properties of a material and the lay-up of a laminate, this is easily performed and viewed in the LUSAS composite material attribute section.

There is an option for modelling symmetric laminates in order to reduce the data input required and a composite material property library is provided for a variety of materials. Various composite failure criteria are available, including Tsai-Hill, Hoffman, Tsai-Wu (with Cowin extension) and Hashin (fibre and matrix).

Many of the models recently analysed using LUSAS have involved components where contact exists between parts of the model either before a load is applied or during loading. The 'slideline' feature in LUSAS was used to model existing and/or potential areas of contact, as it is ideal for modelling situations where there is no exact prior knowledge of the contact process.

There have been improvements to the composite brick elements available in order to more effectively compute through thickness effects, and thermal composite elements are available to allow thermal-structural problems to be solved.