Two-pheromone Ant Colony Optimization to design dispersed laminates for aeronautical structural applications

The objective of the present study is to find out the effect of using non-conventional fiber orientations (orientations not limited to 0 degrees, +/- 45 degrees and 90 degrees) to improve the composite material response. The Ant Colony Algorithm is used to optimize the stacking sequence for biaxial tension and compression loading condition under strength constraints. Moreover, a modified algorithm (two-pheromone algorithm) is used to design a fully dispersed laminate. Results show that dispersed laminates can improve the critical buckling load by up to 8\% for the biaxial compression loading case. With respect to the biaxial tensile loading condition, the results show that the matrix cracking failure index can be decreased up to 100\% and the fiber tensile failure index can be decreased by 40\% using the two pheromone formulation. (C) 2013 Civil-Comp Ltd and Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.