A three-dimensional sampling optimization method for buckling optimization of variable prestressed composite plates

A novel three-dimensional sampling optimization method (3DSO) is proposed for the stacking sequence design of variable prestressed composite plates. The lamination parameters (LPs) are used to determine the distances between stacking sequences and control their distribution in the design space of LPs allowing several good initial stacking sequences to be determined by uniform sampling. Then, local sampling optimization is conducted in the vicinity of the previous good initial points to refine the optimum. During the sampling procedure, dynamic distance constraints are applied to ensure that the stacking sequences are closest to the LPs. Lastly, the layerwise optimization approach (LOA) is employed as a local optimization solver to locate the final optimum. Ritz method is developed in terms of orthogonal polynomials to perform the prebuckling and buckling analyses for variable prestressed composite plates subjected to a variety of boundary conditions and a multiplicity of loading conditions. The performance of 3DSO is compared with that of two-dimensional sampling optimization (2DSO) method and genetic algorithm (GA). The optimization results indicate that the 3DSO method is efficient and robust for addressing the problem of stacking sequence optimization.