Materials

This is a list of materials that can later be assigned to the layers of the bow.

Figure: Materials in the model tree

If the Materials category in the model tree is selected, the buttons (, , , ) can be used to add, remove and reorder materials. Materials can be renamed by double-clicking and entering a new name.

Figure: Material properties

For each material, the following properties are needed:

  • Color: Color of the material (only used for display)

  • Rho: Density (mass per unit volume)

  • E: Elastic modulus (measure of stiffness)

For synthetic materials like e.g. fiber-reinforced composites you can often find the mechanical properties in a datasheet provided by the manufacturer. Natural materials like wood are more difficult, because their properties can vary quite a bit. Average numbers can be found at http://www.wood-database.com and other websites, which should be a good starting point. The alternative is to determine the material properties by experiment with a bending test. For more information on that see Appendix C.