MINIMUM WEIGHT DESIGN OF SANDWICH AND LAMINATED COMPOSITE STRUCTURES

The illustrative examples presented above show that the proposed optimum design method based on planning of experiments is an efficient method for the minimum weight design of sandwich and laminated composite plates. Vibration and damping constraints can be modeled using simple mathematical expressions. These expressions are obtained using the finite element solution in the experiment points. Reference points in the search domain are determined from plans of experiment. The advantage of the proposed method is its minimum computational effort for repeated finite element solutions. The major advantage of the method is the possibility of using the data not only from the computer solution, but also the data obtained experimentally in the reference points. In this case, simple mathematical models represent both theoretical and experimental data. © 1995 Plenum Publishing Corporation.