A combinatorial optimization method is proposed for finding the optimal stacking sequence and the ply drop-offs of a blended composite structure. This method assumes that the thicknesses of the regions of the structure are fixed in advance. It is able to handle efficiently design and manufacturing rules which are of combinatorial type. The optimization problem is formulated as a constrained binary programming problem and it is solved by applying both a primal and a dual backtracking procedures with a local search method. Some numerical experiments are carried out to show the efficiency of the optimization method with respect to both computational time and quality criteria.
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