ABSTRACT
This study presents the efficiency of adopting lamination parameters as design variables for the reliability-based optimization of a laminated composite plate subject to in-plane loads. Each ply failure probability is evaluated by the first order reliability method, where the material properties and applied loads are treated as random variables. The plate system is modeled as a series system consisting of each ply failure based on the first ply failure criterion. Accordingly, the system reliability is approximated by Ditlevsen’s bounds. Through numerical calculations, it is clarified that the reliability is distributed smoothly in the lamination parameter space. Then, the efficiency of adopting the lamination parameters as design variables is demonstrated for the reliability-maximized design of the constant thickness plate and the thickness-minimized design under the reliability constraint.
