Optimum design of laminated composite foam-filled sandwich plates subjected to strength constraint (Q1302779)

The authors discuss optimum design of laminated composite sandwich plates with continuous and discrete design variables subjected to strength constraints. The strength of a sandwich plate is determined by combining the failure analysis with finite element method. In the first-level optimization, the discrete design variables are temporarily treated as continuous variables. In the second-level optimization, the optimal solution obtained in the first-level optimization is used in the branch-and-bound method for solving a discrete optimization problem to determine the final weight of the plate. A number of examples concerning the design of laminated composite foam-filled sandwich plates demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.