Optimal design of composite ChamberCore structures

An optimization procedure has been developed to uniquely and efficiently determine the "best" local geometry design of a new composite ChamberCore structure. This procedure is based on minimization of the total mass of a single composite ChamberCore subject to a set of design and stress constraints. The stress constraints are obtained in closed form based on the composite box-beam model for various composite lamination designs and loading conditions. The optimization problem statement is constructed and then solved using the VMCON optimization program, which is an iterative sequential quadratic programming (SQP) technique based on Powell's algorithm. The sensitivity of the solution of the optimal geometry to the values of parameters that characterize the structural durability and the failure mechanism is discussed. (C) 2001 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.