Questions regarding Homework problems 5.3 & 5.4

I do not fully understand HW 5.3 from Steve's presentation. When I put the ply definition shown on the left side of the slide in MicMac/Flex, I get the in-plane effective [E0] values and in-plane normalized stiffness [A*] values he shows, but the flexural [Ef] and [D*] are not the same. So I assume we just use what he has in the matrices on the right to compare? I put in [theta1 as 0, 3 ply#; theta2 as 45, 2 ply#; theta3 as -45, 2 ply#; theta4 as 90, 1 ply#]s,r=2

But this has made me wonder if I understand the stacking sequence terminology that you are using. For example, how do you know [ 0,3/ +-45,2 / 90 ]s,r=2 is the sequence he shows? I see it has 2 copies of [three 0's, two -45's, 2 +45's, and a 90]... But how do you know the order from top is (45,0,-45,0,45,0,-45,90) times 2??? Is this a dumb question? This ordering would not effect the in plane E values, but could change the bending values, right? The MicMac convention I think was said to be from bottom to top of the symmetry plane, and I thought the # of ply's repeated in order. IE, for the example notation it would be [0/0/0/45/45/-45/-45/90]s,r=2, which does not match the [90/-45/0/45/0/-45/0/45]s,r=2 shown in the figure. Actually, as I look at past examples this terminology has not been used consistently to represent what I see in the laminate stack pictures.

Can you please explain the terminology and how Dr Tsai got those matrices on the slides? Also, what is [±f] and [±f’]

The same applies to his second problem.

Thanks,
Chuck Bernitt