Maximum frequency design of laminated plates with mixed boundary conditions

A layerwise optimization (LO) approach is extended to accommodate the finite element analysis for optimizing the free vibration behavior of laminated composite plates with discontinuities along the boundaries. The classical non-conforming finite element is modified to fit into the LO procedure and is used to calculate natural frequencies of symmetrically laminated plates. This combined LO-FEM approach is applied to laminated rectangular plates with combinations of free, simply supported and clamped edges along parts of the plate boundary. The fundamental frequency, an object function for the present study, is maximized by optimizing design variables that are a set of fiber orientation angles in the layers. For illustrative purpose nine examples of square and rectangular plates with various types of mixed boundary conditions are considered, and a comprehensive set of results are presented for the optimum fiber orientation angles and the maximum fundamental frequencies of the 8-layer and 24-layer plates.