The object of the present work is the development and application of a quite general approach to optimal design of composite laminates where elastic symmetries can also be explicitly expressed as criteria of the optimisation process. Our formulation is in the form of a highly non linear and non convex single- or multi-objective optimisa- tion problem subject to equality and inequality constraints. We show here applications to the design of maximum stiffness, maximum buckling load, maximum eigenfrequencies, maximum strength for laminated plates, as well as combinations of the afore mentioned criteria; all types of elastic symmetries can be taken into account. We show here a num- ber of numerical solutions found using the genetic algorithm BIANCA.
