Optimisation of Fibre Orientations in Composite Material by Applying Simulating Annealing and Genetic Algorithm Methods

Recently fibre composite structures have become very attractive suitable candidate for engineering applications. Composite materials have been used in the replacement and rehabilitation of traditional structures or design and manufacture new applications. However, the lack of knowledge and especially the non-linear behaviour of composite material limit demands for them. Usually these barriers lead to over-designed products or producing based on trial and error and designer’s experience. Transverse shear and normal stress through thickness are the main cause of nonlinear behaviour of composites. The effect of transverse shear is ignored in current optimisation methods for laminated composites. In this paper Simulated Annealing (SA) and Genetic Algorithm (GA), two stochastic optimisation methods, are applied on penalty function which is recently modified by the author. The effect of transverse shear is considered in this penalty function. The numerical results of SA and GA optimisations are presented and compared