Engineering method to build the composite structure ply database

In this paper, a new method to build a composite ply database with engineering design constraints is proposed. This method has two levels: the core stacking sequence design and the whole stacking sequence design. The core stacking sequences are obtained by the full permutation algorithm considering the ply ratio requirement and the dispersion character which characterizes the dispersion of ply angles. The whole stacking sequences are the combinations of the core stacking sequences. By excluding the ply sequences which do not meet the engineering requirements, the final ply database is obtained. One example with the constraints that the total layer number is 100 and the ply ratio is 30:60:10 is presented to validate the method. This method provides a new way to set up the ply database based on the engineering requirements without adopting intelligent optimization algorithms.