Optimum design of composite laminates for minimum thickness

In this study, an optimization procedure is proposed to minimize thickness (or weight) of laminated composite plates subject to in-plane loading. Fiber orientation angles and layer thickness are chosen as design variables. Direct search simulated annealing (DSA), which is a reliable global search algorithm, is used to search the optimal design. Static failure criteria are used to determine whether load bearing capacity is exceeded for a configuration generated during the optimization process. in order to avoid spurious optimal designs, both the Tsai-Wu and the maximum stress criteria are employed to check static failure. Numerical results are obtained and presented for different loading cases. (C) 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.