Ant Colony Optimization Model for Composite Laminate Design

Abstract

A composite material is the result of the aggregation of two or more distinct materials to form a new one with specific properties. Designing composite materials is difficult because it involves designing their geometry and composition, and therefore, the possibilities for creating composite materials are almost unlimited. Algorithms based in swarm intelligence are showing better results to solve combinatorial optimization problems. In this paper we propose an ant colony optimization model for the design of composite materials. Finally, the propose method is applied to a real case showing results that are promising.