STRUCTURAL OPTIMISATION OF A COMPOSITE AIRCRAFT FRAME FOR A CHARACTERISTIC RESPONSE CURVE

Abstract

In this paper an heuristic optimisation technique for a characteristic response curve of CFRP z-frames used in aerospace applications is investigated. Therein, the focus is to identify a dynamic response being most suitable to map onto a specified reference curve. For that purpose a parametric finite element model was established. Discrete laminate stacks and continuous geometry parameters were used as design variables for structural optimisation. In order to solve the nonlinear unconstrained optimisation task, a mixed-integer distributed ant colony algorithm was selected and applied. Within the solution space, a structural layout of the z-frame was identified from a set of pareto optimal solutions being the best solution with respect to the optimisation objectives. Ultimately, the best solution of the response curve approach is compared to the solution of a response value approach.