Design of Composite Layers with Curvilinear Fiber Paths Using Cellular Automata

The anisotropic advantageous properties of fiber reinforced composites may not be fully exploited unless the fibers are properly placed in their optimal spatial orientations. This paper investigates application of Cellular Automata (CA) for curvilinear fiber design of composite laminae for in-plane responses. CA use local rules to update both field and design variables in an iterative scheme till convergence. In the present study, displacement update rules are derived using a finite element model governing the equilibrium of the cell neighborhood and fiber angles are locally optimized based on a minimum strain energy criterion. A manufacturing improvement is applied on top of the local optimum orientation wherever this angle is not consistent with the cell neighborhood orientation trend. Numerical studies showed convergency of the local update rules and considerable improvements in the stiffness properties for a cantilever bending test and a square plate with a cutout.