About Plot

Preliminary Comment: Program SYMM is used to study the behavior of symmetric, generally-orthotropic composite laminates subject to type S4 simply-supported boundary conditions. Two different types of analyses can be performed using program SYMM: either the out-of-plane displacement fields caused by a specified transverse loading can be determined, or a buckling analysis can be performed (in the case of a buckling analysis, the four eigenvalues of lowest magnitude are returned by the program). In either case program SYMM creates several data files that can be used to plot the transverse displacement field induced (or the normalized buckling modes associated with the four lowest eigenvalues). Program SYMM does not create these plots, however. The plots must be created using a third-party software package.

Program PLOT: One third party software package that can create these plots is Maple™. Unlike the other files that may be downloaded from this webpage, PLOT is not an executable file. Rather, PLOT is simply a text file, named “PLOT.txt”. The file PLOT.txt should be downloaded and saved in the same folder that program SYMM is saved within. The user must then modify the PLOT.txt file. Specifically, file must be modified to indicate the location of the data files created by SYMM. As downloaded, PLOT.txt contains the “fopen(…):” command in EIGHT lines. These eight lines must be modified to reflect the location of the files to be read by MAPLE. For example, the following line appears in the as-downloaded file:

> T := fopen( "C:/Text/FortranPrograms/Symm/Type.txt",READ):

Suppose a user has downloaded program SYMM to a folder named “Composites” on his/her C: drive. In this case the command listed above should be modified to read:

> T := fopen( "C:/Composites/Type.txt",READ):

A similar modification must be made at seven additional locations.

After modifying PLOT.txt as described above and performing an analysis with SYMM (thereby creating the files necessary to create a plot of displacement fields):

(a) Start MAPLE™.

(b) Open the modified file PLOT.txt as a “Maple text file”

(c) Execute the program

The files created during the preceding SYMM analysis will be used to plot transverse displacement field(s). Of course, Maple™ is not the only software package that could be used to create these plots; for example, Mathematica™ or MatLab™ are two other widely-available packages that might be used. Users of these alternate software packages are still encouraged to download PLOT.txt, since the plotting routine is straightforward and can be easily converted to run with these other software packages.