Object-oriented approach to optimize composite laminated plate stiffness with discrete ply angles

A system for designing the optimum stacking sequence combination of laminated composite plates using an object-oriented approach was presented here. In this design system, a stacking sequence combination of a laminated composite plate is optimized such that the actual strain under an applied load is reduced with the lowest ply number being subject to some empirical combinatorial restrictions on the stacking sequence. Two optimization approaches are provided here. In the first approach, the ply that most drastically reduces the actual strain of a composite plate is stacked one by one on the laminate. This approach is called the sequential decision approach in this study. In the second approach, the optimal solution to the stacking sequence problem was efficiently obtained by the branch-and-bound procedure. By using these approaches, the optimized stacking sequences were successfully obtained.