Optimization of laminate stacking sequence for minimizing weight and cost using elitist ant system optimization

This paper presents the application of ant colony optimization (ACO) for the multi-objective optimization of hybrid laminates for obtaining minimum weight and cost. The investigated laminate is made of glass–epoxy and graphite–epoxy plies to combine the lightness and economical attributes of the first with the high-stiffness property of the second using a modified variation of ACO so called the elitist ant system (EAS) in order to make the tradeoff between the cost and weight as the objective functions. First natural frequency was considered as a constraint. The obtained results using the EAS method including the Pareto set, optimum stacking sequences, and the number of plies made of either glass or graphite fibers were compared with those using the genetic algorithm (GA) and any colony system (ACS) reported in literature. The comparisons confirm the advantage of hybridization and showed that the EAS algorithm outperformed the GA and ACS in terms of function’s value and constraint accuracy.

► Multi-objective optimization for cost–weight using ant colony optimization.
► Optimization of hybrid laminated composites with first natural frequency as design constraint.
► The proposed ACO outperformed other methods reported in literature.