GENETIC ALGORITHMS IN SIMULATING OPTIMAL STACKING SEQUENCE OF A COMPOSITE LAMINATE PLATE WITH CONSTANT THICKNESS

P.-F. Pai, S. Deng, C.-C. Lai, and P.-S. Wu

Keywords

Genetic algorithms, optimization, ply stacking sequence

Abstract

Due to their high reliability, composite materials are commonly used in industry. The stacking sequence is crucial to the strength of composite materials; however, the arrangement of this sequence is very time consuming. Because the stacking sequence is usually NP complete, genetic algorithms (GA) were employed to deal with the stacking sequence problems in this study. The interlaminate stress σ33 of a constant thickness composite plate, which is obtained by the analytical method, was used as the fitness function in the GA to find its minimum value by arrange the ply stacking sequence. Three examples of constant thickness and symmetrical composite laminate plates were used to examine the performance of the proposed algorithms. The results of computational tests presented are very encouraging.

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