A method is presented for the maximum stiffness design of rectangular laminated composite plates under transverse loading conditions. Fiber orientations of all layers of the composite laminate are taken as design variables. The optimality criterion employed is minimum strain energy, which is shown to be directly related with the stiffness of plates.
The composite plates are analyzed by the Rayleigh-Ritz method using trigonometric functions. An analysis of solution accuracy in terms of the number of functions taken is also included. The sensitivity information is obtained by finite differencing. The BFGS method is employed for optimization and found to be very efficient.
Several numerical results are summarized for different aspect ratios and stackings. They are also compared with the performances of quasi-isotropic laminates. The sensitivity due to a change in the loading point and aspect ratio is studied and shown to be useful as a simplified reoptimization method.
