Hello All, 

I have a model with continuum solid elements, that has a 30-ish ply laminate.  I am using C3D elements because I need a real close look at interlam behavior. The geometry and laminates are axisymmetric (not in terms of the modeling space which is 3D, just in terms of the actual geometry being revolved about a center axis. 

I created a cylindrical coordinate system in CAE as shown below (CYL-CSYS-2).  

The composite laminate layup orientation points to this cylindrical coord system, and each ply in the composite laminate uses the composite laminate layup orientation. Then each ply has it's orientation defined (0 is intended to be along the cylinder axis, 90 is intended to be circumferential). I set the stacking direction as element direction 1 (I assume this means R of the R, Theta, Z). 

When I highlight each ply, the graphic shows 5 vectors:

• 1
• 2
• 3
• Ref1
• S

The first ply looks right to me (I am assuming S is for stacking direction - which looks to be correctly in the radial direction)

However other plies look very wrong. For example this ply has the stack direction along the axis of the cylinder. 

Can anyone help me understand how to do this properly, and what the graphic vectors Ref1 and S refer to? I have dug through the Abaqus manual but there are so many different pages that address material orientation and I couldn't find anything relevant here. 

Thank you!