Reliability-based robust design optimization of laminated composite structures

The probability approach is the most popular way to quantify uncertain parameters and perform reliability analysis. The problems of structural optimization and robust design for laminated composite structures with reliability constraints are addressed in this paper. A new methodology to determine the optimal robust configuration of laminated composite structures with reliability constraints is proposed. In the proposed method, the criterion of Tsai-Wu is adopt to determine the failure of composite materials, the reliability analysis is performed by using Monte Carlo simulation, and the multi-objective optimization involved in the classical reliability-based robust design can be transformed into the single-objective optimization by using two-level optimization algorithm. A numerical example is given, it is shown that the proposed method is effective and feasible.