The advantages of laminated composite structures make them attractive in industrial applications. To achieve the maximum advantages of the composite structures, the design optimization is of great importance. This paper classifies and compares various optimization problems and methods in laminated composite structure design. Three kinds of problems are illustrated in this paper: constant stiffness design, variable stiffness design, and topology optimization. The main optimization methods used in laminated composite structure design, including the gradient-based methods, heuristic methods, and hybrid methods, are presented. The advantages and shortcomings of each method are discussed in detail. Finally, constant and variable stiffness design and topology optimization of laminated composite structures which have been solved in literature are reviewed.

A coupled micro–meso-scale modeling strategy is proposed to investigate the damage mechanism of 2D SiC/SiC ceramic matrix composites. The multi-scale modeling begins with microstructure construction using the representative volume elements (RVE). The effective properties of the SiC/SiC yarn are computed using the micro-scale RVE model. At meso-scale, the Tsai-Wu and Mohr’s failure criteria are used to describe the different failure modes of yarn and matrix. A satisfied agreement with experimental results obtained by uniaxial tension tests validates the proposed multi-scale modeling strategy. The damage behavior of 2D SiC/SiC composites under in-plane shear loading is further investigated.

The contribution of this work is introducing a multi-objective optimization method based on finite element (FE) numerical simulation to simultaneously control the curing time and cure-induced defects of C-shaped composites during a curing cycle. Thermochemical and thermomechanical coupled analysis is performed and validated experimentally to understand the evolution details of temperature, degree of cure and curing deformation. Aiming to achieve the simultaneous control of manufacturing cost and composite quality, the curing profile is optimized by employing the critical factors including the total curing time, the maximum degree of cure difference, and the curing deformation. The optimization result shows that the designed curing profile can effectively reduce the curing time and guarantee the curing quality. The total curing time of the optimization is reduced by 19%. The verification experiment is also conducted to prove the accuracy and effectiveness of the proposed optimization method.