DESIGN OPTIMIZATION OF VARIABLE STIFFNESS COMPOSITE LAMINATES USING SURROGATE MODELS FOR COMPLIANCE AND BUCKLING LOADHasan Inci and Altan Kayran Usage of composite materials in aerospace industry has never been so wide in our world. Starting from the development of composites, the analyses were only done for straight fiber composites. With the improved manufacturing capabilities, designers have the ability to design more complex shapes for composites, which allows more efficient structures. In the past two decades, variable stiffness (VS) composite laminates are introduced to the literature. Within these two decades, researchers working on VS concept are progressively increasing, due to the advantages over straight fiber laminates. Even there are advantages of this concept; the main disadvantage of VS composite laminates is the higher design cost of the problems, mainly the need for finite element analysis (FEA). In each design optimization cycle, there is a need for FEA. In this study, to reduce the design cost of the design optimization of VS composite laminates, a surrogate model is used instead of FEA in the optimization process. With the two problems solved in this study, it is seen that the total optimization times are reduced significantly. The response of the VS composite laminate is very well modeled with the surrogate model generated. |