Patent ID: 11861273
Assignee: THE BOEING COMPANY
Field: Computer technology (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC G  B | IPC G

Claim 11:
12. A computer program product for defining a guide comprised of one or more defined sets of ordered ply orientations, the computer program product comprising at least one non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having computer executable program code instructions stored therein, the program code instructions configured to:
receive a plurality of stacking sequence rules; and
define the guide comprised of the one or more defined sets of ordered ply orientations in accordance with a constrained, linear integer optimization formulation, wherein the program code instructions configured to define the guide comprise program code instructions configured to:
divide the guide into a plurality of blocks;
determine a plurality of sublaminate stacks that satisfy the plurality of stacking sequence rules and that have a size limited by a size of the plurality of blocks;
for each of the plurality of blocks, determine in accordance with the constrained, linear integer optimization formulation a sublaminate stack from among the plurality of sublaminate stacks that is compatible with a respective block; and
define a matrix Rkbs of ply counts of plies of sublaminate stacks of the plurality of sublaminate stacks that is compatible with candidate blocks b that have an orientation angle k;
store the guide in a memory, wherein the guide is used to define sequences of ply orientations that satisfy predetermined stacking sequence rules for a composite structure; and
guide assembly of the composite structure according to the guide.