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Minimizing the stress concentrations around cutouts in a plate is often a design problem, especially in the Aerospace industry. A problem of optimizing spatially varying fiber paths in a symmetric, linear orthotropic composite laminate with a cutout, so as to achieve minimum stress concentration under remote unidirectional tensile loading is of interest in this study. A finite element (FE) model is developed to this extent, which constraints the fiber angles while optimizing the fiber paths, proving essential in manufacturing processes. The idea to be presented could be used to derive fiber paths that would drastically reduce the Stress Concentration Factor (SCF) in a symmetric laminate by using spatially varying fibers in place of unidirectional fibers. The model is proposed for a four layer symmetric laminate, and can be easily reproduced for any number of layers.

Advancements in electrical, mechanical, and structural design onboard modern more electric aircraft have added significant stress to the thermal management systems (TMS). A thermal management system level analysis tool has been created in MATLAB/Simulink to facilitate rapid system analysis and optimization to meet the growing demands of modern aircraft. It is anticipated that the tracking of thermal energy through numerical integration will lead to more accurate predictions of worst case TMS sizing conditions. In addition, the non-proprietary nature of the tool affords users the ability to modify component models and integrate advanced conceptual designs that can be evaluated over multiple missions to determine the impact at a system level.