Reliability-based design optimization of material orientation and structural topology of fiber-reinforced composite structures under load uncertainty

Abstract

Currently, most works on synchronous optimization of composite topology and fiber orientation are all carried out under deterministic conditions, where the influence of uncertain factor on design optimization of fiber-reinforced composite structures is ignored. In this work, an effective probabilistic reliability-based topology optimization (RBTO) method is proposed for material orientation and structural topology of continuum fiber-reinforced composite structures under load uncertainty for the first time. A nested double-loop optimization algorithm of minimizing the relative volume fraction while satisfying the reliability requirement of the compliance response is established, where inner loop is for reliability analysis and outer loop is for topology optimization. The sensitivities of reliability constraint with respect to random variable and design variables are detailed using the adjoint variable method. Finally, several typical examples are performed to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed methodology.