Composite Materials Research Progress

Optimization of Laminated Composite Structures… 85
the SAM method is used, the structural responses in terms of both the fibers orientations and
the thicknesses are well approximated, while using GCMMA, the approximation in terms of
the thicknesses is too conservative, what slows down the overall convergence speed of the
optimization process.
1
0.95
0.9
0.85
0.8
0.75
0.7
0.65
0.6
0.55
Relative compliances
0.5
1 4 8 12 20
Number of regions : n
Figure 8.5. Evolution of the compliances in the problem (8.2) for the structures illustrated in Figure 8.4.
The compliance of the one region structure is the reference (n = 1)
1 region
4 regions
Figure 8.6. Continued on next page.