Two-Level Weight Optimization of Composite Laminates Using Integer Programming

What is it about?

Composite laminates used in structural design are tailored either to reduce weight and maintain specific properties or to improve these properties for a given weight limitation. This is done by altering fiber orientations and thicknesses of different plies. Determining the best orientations and thicknesses is difficult because the total number of orientation and thickness combinations that can give desired structural properties is large. To find the best possible design configurations, standard techniques are inefficient. The paper presents a way to find such designs using mathematical programming. The equations representing the design problem are converted into forms where mathematical programming can be implemented. For this, the design problem is split into two separate optimization problems run together in a nested or sequential manner. One optimization problem determines the optimal orientation while the other determines the optimal ply thickness.

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