Browsing by Author "Sing, Yung S."

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    Design of Laminated Plates for Maximum Buckling Load
    Sing, Yung S.; Haftka, Raphael T.; Watson, Layne T.; Plaut, Raymond H. (Department of Computer Science, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, 1988)
    The buckling load of laminated plates having midplane symmetry is maximized for a given total thickness. The thicknesses of the layers are taken as the design variables. Buckling analysis is carried out using the finite element method. The optimality equations are solved by a homotopy method which permits tracing optima as a function of total thickness. It is shown that for any design with a given stacking sequence of ply orientations, there exists a design associated with any other stacking sequence which possesses the same bending stiffness matrix and same total thickness. Hence, from the optimum design for a given stacking sequence, one can directly determine the optimum design for any rearrangement of the ply orientations, and the optimum buckling load is independent of the stacking sequence.