Stiffness design method of symmetric laminates using lamination parameters

Astudy was conducted to present a stiffness design method of symmetric laminates using lamination parameters. Results show that the stiffness components are a linear function with respect to the two lamination parameters, which are governed by four in-plane and four out-of-plane lamination parameters, respectively. In the stiffness optimization, the use of lamination parameters as design variables leads to an efficient optimization approach because of the existing relation between the lamination parameters.