Multi-Objective Optimum Design of Composite Structures by Using the Design of Experiments(<Special Issue>Dynamics & Design Conference 2009)

Abstract

The fiber reinforced plastics are widely used in engineering structures because they have excellent features of high specific strength and stiffness ratio. These advanced composites are fabricated typically by stacking orthotropic layers, each of which is composed of reinforcing fibers and matrix material. In this work, an optimum design approach is proposed to deal with multi-objective design for buckling behaviors of laminated composite plates. The approach consists of two parts: the first part is to calculate the influence factors and determine the estimated model of each objective function by using design of experiments, and the second part is to explore Pareto sets from the estimated model. In numerical examples, the fiber orientation angles of symmetrically laminated plate are optimized for maximizing the buckling parameters simultaneously for two different compression loadings. It is shown that the proposed approach is quite effective in obtaining Pareto sets with reduced calculation cost. Moreover, the influence analysis found that outer layers are more effective than the inner layers, and the interactions between adjacent layers are also important on buckling behavior of the laminated plates.