Reliability-Based Optimization of a Prismatic Core Sandwich Panel

Reliability-based design is applied as an important approach to achieve high safety with light weight. In the engineering problems uncertainity should be considered in the design procedures so that the structural reliability is not smaller than a determined value. In this paper, the weight of a sandwich panel is optimized. First, the problem is solved by GA and then the weight is optimized by RIA, PMA and RDS methods based on the reliability indices. The results obtained from the aforementioned methods and GA method are compared. The comparision reveals that the panel with six wavelength core is more effective to obtain a high reliability.