Bg. Falzon et al., MULTIPLE CUTOUT OPTIMIZATION IN COMPOSITE PLATES USING EVOLUTIONARY STRUCTURAL OPTIMIZATION, Structural engineering and mechanics, 5(5), 1997, pp. 609-624
The optimization of cutouts in composite plates was investigated by im
plementing a procedure known as Evolutionary Structural Optimization.
Perforations were introduced into a finite element mesh of the plate f
rom which one or more cutouts of a predetermined size were evolved. In
the examples presented, plates were rejected from around each evolvin
g cutout based on a predefined rejection criterion. The Limiting ply w
ithin each plate element around the cutout was determined based on the
Tsai-Hill failure criterion. Finite element plates with values below
the product of the average Tsai-Hill number and a rejection criterion
were subsequently removed. This process was iterated until a steady st
ate was reached and the rejection criterion was then incremented by an
evolutionary rate and the above steps repeated until the desired cuto
ut area was achieved. Various plates with differing lay-up and loading
parameters were investigated to demonstrate the generality and robust
ness of this optimization procedure.