Journal of the Computational Structural Engineering Institute of Korea ISSN:1229-3059(Print) 2287-2302(Online) 한국전산구조공학회 논문집

In this study, we presented a novel size optimization framework to control the linear buckling temperature and several buckling modes of plates, by optimizing thickness values of composite structures for practical engineering applications. Predicting the buckling temperature and mode shape of structures is a vital research topic in engineering to achieve structural stability. However, optimizing designs of engineering structures through engineering intuition is challenging. To address this limitation, we proposed a method that combines finite element simulation and size optimization. Based on the idea that the structural buckling temperature and mode shape of a plate are affected by the thickness of the structure, the thickness values of the nodes of the target structure were set as the design variables in this optimization method; and the buckling temperature values, and buckling mode shapes were set as the objective functions. This size optimization method enabled the determination of optimal thickness distributions, to induce the desired buckling temperature values and mode shapes. The validity of the proposed method was verified in terms of their buckling temperature values and buckling mode shapes, using several numerical examples of rectangular composite structures.