MASS MINIMIZATION OF COMPOSITE SANDWICH FLOORS

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to develop a new optimization method for a completely FRP composite vehicle floor construction. Combinations of four different FRP layers (phenolic resin with woven glass fibres, epoxy resin with woven glass fibres; epoxy resin with woven carbon fibres; hybrid composite) and FRP honeycomb core were investigated during the optimization process. The face sheets comprised varying layers with cross-ply, angle-ply, and multidirectional fibre orientations. The mechanical behaviours of the structure have been considered as design constraints: stability, stress, deflection, stiffness, skin wrinkling, intracell buckling, and shear crimping were all taken into account during the optimization process. The Nonlinear Generalized Reduced Gradient (GRG) Algorithm of the Excel Solver software was used to solve the single-objective mass optimization.