Abstract
A layerwise optimization approach, developed for the design of vibration of laminated rectangular plates, is extended to the symmetrically laminated, composite elliptical plates. There is little information available on the optimum lay-ups of such elliptical plates, including the special case of circular plates. The optimum design problem is formulated to maximize the critical buckling load and the lowest frequency, and fiber orientation angles in the layers are used as the design variables. A Ritz method is used to calculate eigenvalues (buckling load and frequency) of the elliptical plates and the convergence and comparison studies indicate accuracy of the calculated eigenvalues as the object function. A set of numerical results is given in tabular and graphical form, illustrating the optimum lay-ups of the laminated elliptical plates with respect to the fiber orientation angles.
