ON SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS AND OPTIMAL DESIGN OF SPECIALLY ORTHOTROPIC LAMINATES

Sensitivity analysis with respect to fibre orientation as well as to ply thickness is performed for specially orthotropic laminates. Eigenfrequencies, buckling load and displacement are all related to the same non-dimensional functional, which is therefore taken as the objective for our optimization.

If the laminates are assumed to be made of plies of the same material, then closed form results are obtainable, and it is essential that these results are well understood. For more advanced models the main parameters will be same and so will the main aspects of the sensitivity analysis.

The principal conclusions of this unconstrained optimization are that the optimal fibre orientation depends mainly on the displacement mode and that the problem of optimal thickness distribution is not well-defined.