Optimal design of composite wing subjected to gust loads

Stacking sequence of a cantilever composite wing is optimized to minimize strain energy by random gust loads. For evaluation of the strain energy, the probabilistic characteristics of the wing root bending moment induced by random gust were calculated and the material properties of composite wing were assumed to show Gaussian distribution. With these random variables, the average of strain energy was evaluated by Monte Carlo simulation. The branch and bound method is modified to handle discrete ply angles efficiently for stacking sequence optimization. Numerical results show that bending stiffness to random gust can be considerably improved by optimal design process.