Stiffness Design of Laminated Composites: Efficient Conversion of Lamination Parameters into Stacking Sequences

Fibre-reinforced laminated composites are constructed layer-by-layer, allowing their material properties to be easily tailored relative to their isotropic counterparts (metallic alloys). Moreover, a composite structure with variable stiffness (VS) can be made by spatially tailoring stiffness across a laminate. This permits better load...

Efficient strength optimization of variable stiffness laminates using lamination parameters with global failure index

A computationally-efficient strength optimization method tailoring novel composite laminates using lamination parameters is developed. The method adopts a global p-norm approach to aggregate local failure indices into a global failure index, based on the Tsai-Wu failure criterion. For design purposes, the novel composite laminates are...

Topology optimization, variable stiffness design and staggered optimization for laminated composite structures: a comparative study

The demand for efficient lightweight structures grows rapidly in the aerospace sector. Topology optimization, introduced in the late 80s, is a method capable of producing such structures and has been mainly studied for isotropic materials. On the other hand, the performance of composite structures, which are already widely employed in the...

Effect of steering limit constraints on the performance of variable stiffness laminates

A method to optimise the fibre angle distribution of variable stiffness laminates is proposed. The proposed method integrates a fibre angle retrieval step with a fibre angle optimisation procedure. A multi-level approximation approach is used in combination with the method of successive approximations. First, fibre angle retrieval is done by...

Effect of Steering Limit Constraints on the Performance of Variable Stiffness Laminates

A method to optimise the fibre angle distribution of variable stiffness laminates is proposed. The proposed method integrates a fibre angle retrieval step with a fibre angle optimisation procedure. A multi-level approximation approach is used in combination with the method of successive approximations. First, fibre angle retrieval is done by...

Static Aeroelastic Optimization of Composite Wings with Variable Stiffness Laminates

The application of composite material in load carrying structural components of an aircraft is rapidly gaining momentum. While part of the reason for this can certainly be attributed to an increasing confidence of designers in the new material as a result of growing experience, two other crucial points can be made. One, the continuous...

Optimal Design of Variable Stiffness Composite Structures using Lamination Parameters

Fiber reinforced composite materials have gained widespread acceptance for a multitude of applications in the aerospace, automotive, maritime and wind-energy industries. Automated fiber placement technologies have developed rapidly over the past two decades, driven primarily by a need to reduce manufacturing costs and improve product consistency...

Aeroelastic tailoring using lamination parameters: Drag reduction of a Formula One rear wing

The aim of the present work is to passively reduce the induced drag of the rear wing of a Formula One car at high velocity through aeroelastic tailoring. The angle-of-attack of the rear wing is fixed and is determined by the required downforce needed to get around a turn. As a result, at higher velocity, the amount of downforce and related...