Optimal Design of Elastomer Composites for ... - Michael I Friswell

elastomers are the major parameters in designing the FRE
lamina for morphing skins and have to be investigated.
2. The out-of-plane deflection of the plate varies considerably
with the aspect ratio and boundary conditions as the mode
of deflection varies. Therefore, the optimal distribution of
volume fraction of fiber varies with the aspect ratio of the
plate.
3. The optimization performed to minimize the out-of-plane
deflection shows that the parabolic type fiber distributions
increase the bending stiffness. The optimal distribution of
fibers minimizes the out-of-plane deflection by 25 to 30%
compared to the uniform fiber distribution.
4. The optimization performed to increase the flexibility ratio
of the laminate has shown that the non-uniform distribution
of fibers increases the flexibility ratio by almost 30-47%
over that for a uniform distribution of fibers. The flexibility
ratio of optimal fiber distributions with an average volume
fraction of 40% is higher than the uniform fiber distribution
with a volume fraction of 60%.
These results clearly show that the variable fiber distribution
plays a major role in enhancing the desirable characteristics of
morphing skins modeled as composite laminates.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
The authors acknowledge the support of the European Research
Council through project 247045 entitled ”Optimisation of
Multi-scale Structures with Applications to Morphing Aircraft”.
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