Fiber-Reinforced Sandwich Plates Under Static Loads—Proposals for Their Optimization

Abstract

In order to satisfy the permanently increasing specification demands on machines and plants, the structural members and units of the constructions have to be designed in an “optimal” way. Nowadays more and more composite structures are attaining such new fields of application where one-component materials are not able to fulfill the higher demands. Typical examples are light constructions with optimal stiffness at various loadings. In this paper, a detailed investigation of the deformation behavior of a simply supported sandwich plate under static loads is carried out. Then, an optimal design method is formulated as a nonlinear multiobjective optimization problem by adopting the two conflicting objectives “minimal deformation” at “minimal weight,” including a set of constraints. The application of an optimization strategy is shown by means of a special preference function and sequential linearization as optimizer. Finally, some results of this procedure are discussed concerning the optimal design of sandwich plates.