Optimal Strength Design for Fiber-Metal Laminates and Fiber-reinforced Plastic Laminates

Optimal strength design of fiber-reinforced plastic (FRP) laminates and fiber-metal laminates (FML) is studied in this article. An optimization approach that integrates the particle swarm optimization algorithm and a general finite element code ANSYS was developed. ANSYS is utilized to obtain the failure index as fitness function and the optimum fitness is obtained by altering the fiber orientations. The strength behavior of FRP and FML under in-plane load and out-of-plane load is compared based on the optimization results. Results show that for in-plane load, due to the substituting of metal alloy sheet for prepreg layer, the strength behavior in transverse direction is enhanced and FML has better resistance to biaxial load. For out-of-plane point load, FML offers strength performance superior to that of FRP and is more stable for all the boundary conditions investigated.