Program UNIFAIL

This program performs a failure analysis for a unidirectional composite laminate, in accordance with the discussion presented in Sections 5 and 6 of Chapter 5. The program can either predict failure strengths for a specified fiber angle, or generate data that can be used to create a failure envelope for fiber angles ranging from -90 to +90 degrees.

The program should be downloaded and saved to a convenient folder location on your computer. Once the program is initiated it will ask whether you wish to read several input values “FROM A FILE? (Y/N)” If you enter a “Y” (or “y”, meaning “yes”) the program will search for a file containing the needed information. If the file is not found you will be directed to enter the values from the keyboard.

If the program has been used to predict failure strengths for a laminate with specified fiber, then the results of all calculations are printed both to the screen and to a file named “Answer.txt”. Conversely, if the program has been used to generate data that can be used to create a failure envelope, then the data is stored in a file named “Envelop.txt”. A failure envelope can then be created by plotting the data stored in Envelop.txt. This can be accomplished using a third-party software package such as Excel™.

All files created during execution of the program are stored in the folder that contains program UNIFAIL.