Composites…It’s not just a 2D world…Got Flatwise Tension? 

Too often I hear both analysts and designers toss around the term quasi-isotropy…a mythical monster to some, an in-plane idealization to simplify a 3D problem for others. I for one am guilty…because I appreciate the fact that you can take a complex 3D composite problem and knock it down a dimension...in this case, the out-of-plane direction.