Buckling design optimisation of composite laminated plates using differential evolution algorithm approach

This paper presents differential evolution algorithm technique to design a rectangular composite plate by optimising the laminate stacking sequence whose aim is to maximise the buckling load capability without any failure at ply level. In this paper, Tsai Hill failure criterion is used to compute with the failure index and reserve factors for each ply. The optimised results obtained by implementing the differential evolution algorithm for three different load cases are compared with Msc-Nastran FEA solver results. The usage of differential evolution (DE) algorithm for laminate stacking sequence optimisation to maximise buckling load capability is discussed in this paper. The results show that the differential evolution algorithm technique is an effective optimisation tool to determine both the accurate laminate stacking sequence of composite panel. We also notice that the efficiency corroborates the results.