Design Optimization Of Composite Wood Sandwiched Submersible Pressure Hulls

Abstract

The main purpose of this research was to use wood as a core material of composite sandwiched submersible pressure hulls to reduce weight and increase stability under hydrostatic pressure. This task presents design optimization for a submersible pressure hull by means of Finite Element Analysis (FEA). Different composite materials were implemented, and various kinds of woods were consumed as a core. Genetic Algorithm (GA) was used to conduct the optimization process. The ply layer numbers and core thickness, for pressure hulls have been optimized for the configuration of [0l/90m/0n/0c/0o/90p/0q]. The objective function was to decrease the buoyancy factor and to increase the buckling factor. The material failure criteria, and buckling factor were selected as constraints for the optimization process. A comparison was made between the steel pressure hull and promising results were achieved comparatively in favor of using composite material with the combination of wood core.

Keywords

• sandwich structures
• submersible pressure hulls
• parametric analysis
• optimization
• genetic algorithm