Concurrent Patch Optimization of Hybrid Composite Plates Based on Proper Orthogonal Decomposition

Abstract

Hybrid composite materials, which contain more than one type of reinforcing fiber, have been gaining ever-increasing popularity. They can keep superior mechanical properties while greatly reducing the material cost. To fully explore the load-carrying potential, it is crucial to develop a series of corresponding optimization methods for hybrid composites design. In this paper, the concurrent patch optimization of hybrid composite plates is investigated, where fiber orientation, the stacking sequence, and material topology are optimized simultaneously. Discrete material optimization (DMO) is performed to optimize the hybrid composite plates, with the buckling load as the objective and the material cost as the constraint. Because the effectiveness of DMO has been demonstrated to perform the discrete variable optimization of composite structures. Furthermore, an innovative DMO framework based on proper orthogonal decomposition is established to reduce the computational cost, with the aim being to improve the optimization efficiency by reducing the order of the corresponding finite element model, and thus the time needed for the finite element analysis. The effectiveness of the proposed method is demonstrated by means of an illustrative example wherein both the material cost and the time needed for the buckling analysis are reduced dramatically.