I have been tasked with designing a composite structure and am looking for some advice on how to properly model and define the structure for simulation. I am running 2010 Simulation Premium 32bit in Windows Vista. I haven't done any modeling yet so I have nothing to show, but; The structure is very similar to a airplane wing in structure. It will have a main beam (spar) that is box sectioned, foam cored, wrapped in glass with carbon caps. It will have cantilevered diaphragms (ribs) attached on both sides. It will be skinned with sandwich panel top and bottom.

The parts will be built individually and bonded together with a structural adhesive. So How do I model this? It would seam to me that surface on top of surface wouldn't be representative, and would be worthless for drawings and measurements. I would like to actually model solids of the actual thickness and build an assy. If I do that and define all of the parts as the proper composite material, plys, sandwich, ETC. Then I would actually need to model the glue joint at manufacturers recommended film thickness??????? The treat the glue surface as bonded to the adjacent surface and define the properties of the adhesive????

Is this right? Any Help??

Thanks