Development of a user-friendly expert system for composite laminate design

This paper expounds the development of a user-friendly expert system for the optimal stacking sequence design of composite laminates subjected to the various rule constraints. In the expert system, a genetic algorithm for optimization, a finite element analysis tool, an expert system shell and a post-processing software were integrated by graphic-based design environment using C++. It has four modules such as a file view space, a graphic view window, a material selection module and an expert system module. In this study, stacking sequence was optimized to maximize the strength of a composite laminate with a given thickness. Result of this study showed a good agreement with previous one. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.