Continuously fiber-reinforced polymers (CoFRP) offer high weight-specific material properties, making them well suited for lightweight applications. To achieve a high level of lightweighting, optimization strategies need to be integrated into the design workflow. However, due to the anisotropic behavior of composite materials, common optimization approaches for engineering challenges, like topology or shape optimization, are not perfectly suited. Therefore, composite-specific optimization strategies are required to fully leverage their potentials for lightweighting.

The challenges for the optimization of CoFRP components are to account for multiple loads in multiple load cases, as well as to optimize both the layup type and layup orientation. Incorporating the layup type as a degree of freedom into the optimization allows for better exploitation of the lightweight potential of CoFRP components. Therefore, a combined optimization for the layup type and layup orientation is key.

A so-called anisotropy analysis is facing this challenge. Recently, we have adopted and further developed in cooperation with KIT-FAST the anisotropy analysis. Find out more in our latest case study!

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