Automation of Optimal Laminate Design

Abstract: Composite laminates are in widespread use in the aerospace industry. As well as satisfying strength and stiffness criteria, the final laminate design has to be manufacturable in terms of compatibility between adjacent panels, thus introducing conflicting constraints on the allowed laminate stacking sequences. An attempt to automate the laminate design process is described. The method uses a mixture of a genetic algorithm and heuristics which are used to satisfy the various design and manufacturing constraints. Multiple zones are allowed, where each zone defines a panel together with a set of applied loads. Guide laminates and a blending methodology allow each zone to share common plies. This creates ply continuity across the structure and avoids the scenario seen in other laminate optimisation tools where each optimised zone contains unrelated laminates which are not practical from a manufacturing perspective