THE GENETIC ALGORITHM APPLIED TO STIFFNESS MAXIMIZATION OF LAMINATED PLATES - REVIEW AND COMPARISON

The design of laminated structures is highly tailorable owing to the l arge number of available design variables, thereby requiring an optimi zation method for effective design. Furthermore, in practice, the desi gn problem translates to a discrete global optimization problem which requires a robust optimization method such as the genetic algorithm. I n this paper, the genetic algorithm, based on the real variable coding , is applied to the strain energy minimization of rectangular laminate d composite plates. The results for both a point load and uniformly di stributed load compare well with those achieved using trajectory metho ds for continuous global optimization.