Design of Laminated Plates for Maximum Buckling Load

Sing, Yung S. and Haftka, Robert T. and Watson, Layne T. and Plaut, Raymond H. (1988) Design of Laminated Plates for Maximum Buckling Load. Technical Report TR-88-14, Computer Science, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

Abstract

The buckling load of laminated plates having midplane symmetry is maximized for a given total thickness. The thicknesses of the layers are taken as the design variables. Buckling analysis is carried out using the finite element method. The optimality equations are solved by a homotopy method which permits tracing optima as a function of total thickness. It is shown that for any design with a given stacking sequence of ply orientations, there exists a design associated with any other stacking sequence which possesses the same bending stiffness matrix and same total thickness. Hence, from the optimum design for a given stacking sequence, one can directly determine the optimum design for any rearrangement of the ply orientations, and the optimum buckling load is independent of the stacking sequence.