Abstract
A layerwise optimization approach, developed for the design of the vibration of laminated rectangular plates, is extended to apply to symmetrically laminated, composite skew plates. There is little information available on the optimum lay-ups of such skew plates, despite their extensive use in the aerospace industry. The optimum design problem is formulated to maximize the lowest frequency or the difference of the lowest two frequencies, and fiber orientation angles in the layers are used as the design variables. A Ritz method is used to calculate natural frequencies of the skew plates and the convergence and comparison studies with results available from the literature indicate accuracy of the calculated frequencies as the object function. An extensive set of numerical results is given in tabular and graphical form, illustrating the optimum lay-ups of the laminated skew plates with respect to the fiber orientation angles.
