Non-probabilistic thermo-elastic reliability-based topology optimization (NTE-RBTO) of composite laminates with interval uncertainties

This study investigates a non-probabilistic thermo-elastic reliability-based topology optimization (NTE-RBTO) scheme for the lightweight design of composite laminates under thermo-elastic loads with unknown-but-bounded (UBB) parameters. The equivalent constitutive relation of composite laminates is first introduced, and the deterministic topology optimization formulation of composite laminates is derived. In view of the inevitability of multi-source uncertainties during the whole design optimization procedure, the interval model and interval parametric vertex theorem are proposed for the acquisition of the reasonable characterization of uncertain responses in every iterative layout configuration. For reasons of structural safety, an improved non-probabilistic reliability index, the optimization feature distance is adopted, and its design sensitivity with respect to each element pseudo-density under thermal–mechanical coupling loads is calculated. GCMMA, the globally convergent version of MMA (method of moving asymptotes), is employed as the optimization problem solver. The effectiveness and rationality of the proposed method are demonstrated by several numerical examples, eventually.