Stacking sequence optimisation of variable stiffness laminates with manufacturing constraints

The fibre paths of variable stiffness laminates are described through the fibre angles at the nodes of a finite element (FE) representation of the structure. An algorithm is presented to optimise the fibre angles efficiently. To reduce the number of required FE analyses a multi-level approach is use...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Composite structures 2015-07, Vol.125, p.596-604
Main Authors: Peeters, Daniël M.J., Hesse, Simon, Abdalla, Mostafa M.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Approximation
Buckling
Computational modelling
Constraints
Fibre
Finite element method
Laminates
Lay-up (manual/automated)
Mathematical analysis
Steering
Stiffness
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The fibre paths of variable stiffness laminates are described through the fibre angles at the nodes of a finite element (FE) representation of the structure. An algorithm is presented to optimise the fibre angles efficiently. To reduce the number of required FE analyses a multi-level approach is used: the exact solution is first approximated in laminate stiffness space. The second level approximation is a Gauss–Newton quadratic approximation in fibre angle space. To ensure manufacturability, a steering constraint is introduced: the norm of the gradient of the fibre angle distribution is constrained. Two formulations are proposed: either the average steering is constrained; or the local element-wise steering is constrained. The resulting quadratically constrained quadratic optimisation problem is solved using an interior-point method. It is shown that the local steering constraint performs best, at the cost of increasing the size of the problem.
ISSN:0263-8223
1879-1085
DOI:10.1016/j.compstruct.2015.02.044