Discrete Stiffness Tailoring: Optimised design and testing of minimum mass stiffened panels

Discrete Stiffness Tailoring (DST) is a novel manufacturing concept where stiffness tailoring is achieved using discrete changes in ply angle to favourably redistribute stresses. Resulting performance increases can be exploited to potentially achieve lightweight rapidly manufacturable structures, uninhibited by the minimum tow-turning radii which limit continuous fibre steering approaches. An efficient two-stage optimisation routine is...