Design and Analysis of A Tail Sitter (VTOL) UAV Composite Wing
Design and Analysis of A Tail Sitter (VTOL) UAV Composite Wing
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Article history: In recent years the design and development of various classes of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV’s) has
Available online xxxx grown significantly. It is a well-known fact that the utilization of composite structures will reduce the
weight of the aircraft structure by 30–50%. It is possible to tailor the strength and stiffness properties
Keywords: of composite structures by adopting different material or lamination configurations. In this work redesign
Composite wing of the Tail Sitter (Vertical Take Off and Landing/VTOL) UAV wing is carried out in order to improve the
Finite element analysis performance by reduction of the weight. Numerical investigation is carried out to reduce the weight of
Lift
the wing by replacing the existing Aluminum frame with different ply configurations of CFRP and
Tail sitter
Unmanned aerial vehicles
GFRP and also by reducing number of spars. The strength and stiffness of the UAV wing was analysed
Vertical take-off and landing by Finite Element Method. Baseline analysis was carried out on the Aluminium structure by applying
the span wise lift distribution along the wing based on Dr Ing Oster Schrenk’s Approximation method.
For the VTOL UAV configuration the wing has to carry the motor, so structurally wing should have higher
stiffness-to weight ratio to carry the high loads. The present work was focussed on analysis of different
ply configurations of CFRP as well as GFRP using FE methods in order to get better performance in terms
of weight reduction. The analysis was done by configuring the whole wing frame along with spars and
ribs, which gave high stiffness to the wing compared to the Conventional wing. From the CFD analysis,
it is evident that composite wing had less deformation compared to the aluminium wing and the wing
structure was redesigned using CFRP and GFRP based composites. Effect of lay-up configuration on the
performance is also studied for composite wing. Due to high stiffness to weight ratio of composite wing
it is found there is a reduction in weight of the wing by 44.17% compare to aluminium. A redesign of the
wing is done by having a composite frame of two spars and five Ribs.
Copyright Ó 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the First International Con-
ference on Advances in Mechanical Engineering and Material Science.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2022.03.231
2214-7853/Copyright Ó 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the First International Conference on Advances in Mechanical Engineering and Material Science.
Please cite this article as: A. N, J. Arockia Dhanraj, Jenoris Muthiya Solomon et al., Design and analysis of a tail sitter (VTOL) UAV composite wing, Materials
Today: Proceedings, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2022.03.231
A. N, J. Arockia Dhanraj, Jenoris Muthiya Solomon et al. Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx
to distinct setting such as 0°, ±30°, ±45°, ±75° and 90°.Fig. 1.Fig. 2. Table 2
The listing of forces and Pressure acting on the Semi wing span.
Table 1.Table 2.Table 3.Table 4.Table 5.Table 6.Table 5.1.Table 5.2.
The requirements for the aircraft wing are high stiffness, high Strip Area Wing Root-tip Lift Load N PressurePa
strength, high toughness and low weight, in the field of aerospace 1 11.396 518
engineering, the structural analysis based on the finite element 2 11.330 515
method is considered to be very effective numerical simulation 3 11.200 509.1
4 10.997 499.86
and optimisation technique [2]. Carbon fibre reinforced polymer
5 10.711 486.81
(CFRPs) is commonly referred to as lightweight and strong materi- 6 10.344 470.18
als consisting of different types of fibres such as carbon, Kevlar, 7 9.959 452.68
glass and aramid as reinforcements incorporated as matrix in 8 9.219 419.04
polymer-based resin. The developed fabric (reinforcement and 9 7.951 361.42
10 3.900 177.27
matrix) can be shaped in a double curvature which is required
for aerodynamic shapes. Additionally, core sandwich construction
materials are capable of separating energy physically, and poten-
tially transmit shearing forces through the sandwich typical types Table 3
of core used in aircraft applications are rubber, honeycomb, and Mechanical properties of carbon fiber and epoxy resin.
wood. Structurally, the composite itself depends on the fibre–ma- Si No Material Carbon Fiber Epoxy
trix bond properties and the degree of transmitted load [3]. There- properties Tenax Resin
HTS45-3000 Araldite
LY-5052
01 Tensile 240 3.7–4.7
Modulus
(E) GPa
02 Tensile 4500 –
strength
(MPa)
03 Density 1760 1120
(Kg/m3)
04 Volume 0.6 0.4
fraction
(%)
05 Poisson 0.3 0.33
ratio
06 Elongation 1.9 –
at break
07 Shear 92.307 1.76
Modulus
(GPa)
Table 4
Mechanical Properties of Carbon Fiber Reinforced
Polymer.
Properties Metric
Density q(kg/m3) 1504
Young’s Modulus in X direction (E1) 145.8620
Young’s Modulus in Y direction (E2) 11.485
Young’s Modulus in Z direction (E3) 11.485
Poisson ratio in XY direction 0.3120
Poisson ratio in YZ direction 0.024
Poisson ratio in ZX direction 0.442
Shear Modulus in X direction (G12) 4.32
Shear Modulus in Y direction (G23) 3.982
Shear Modulus in Z direction (G31) 4.306
Table 5
Maximum Stress in X and Y Directions of CFRPs.
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A. N, J. Arockia Dhanraj, Jenoris Muthiya Solomon et al. Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx
Table 5.1
Failure Analysis of CFRPs and GFRPs.
Table 5.2
Comparison of Baseline model made up of Aluminium to CFRPs and GFRP.
Table 6
Maximum Strain in X and Y direction of CFRPs.
Fig. 4. Graph of Cl/Cd ratio v/s AOA (angle of attack) for three different AR wing’s.
The performance analysis is done for the wing with different aspect
ratio and its corresponding lift and co-efficient of lit to co-efficient
drag (Cl/Cd) ratio is measured for different angle of attacks, as
shown in the below figures (Fig. 3 and Fig. 4).Fig. 5.Fig. 6.Fig. 7.
Fig. 8.Fig. 9.Fig. 10.Fig. 11.Fig. 12.Fig. 13.Fig. 14.Fig. 15.Fig. 16.
Fig. 17.Fig. 18.Fig. 19.Fig. 20.Fig. 21.
It is clear from the performance analysis that, as the aspect ratio
(AR) increases maximum lift and Cl/Cd ratio increases. Hence the
aspect ratio of the wing is increased to 9.09 form the baseline
4.51 to have more lift.
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A. N, J. Arockia Dhanraj, Jenoris Muthiya Solomon et al. Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx
One of the most critical aspects in the design of the wing is the
assigning lift load. In this analysis two major boundary conditions
are applied to the wing. The attachment of wing root to the fuse-
lage will be fixed. All the displacement and rotations of wing root
section are set to be zero. Based on Dr Ing oster schrenk’s approx-
imation method span wise lift distribution load applied on the
wing[9]. The most aerodynamically efficient and practical wing
have an elliptical lift distribution throughout the wing span. In
some the case loading distribution is different for different types
of wings. In my cases wing is symmetrical and rectangular. Where
in aircraft structure 80% of the load acting on the wing and 20% of
the load acted on the fuselage. So structurally wing as high
strength to carry high loads[10].
From the Aerodynamics Fig. 11. Mesh of ribs and spars on a wing.
L = n*W
Where, L = Lift produced by the Aircraft, n = Load factor,
Lnew
W = weight of aircraft. P¼ð Þ
Using the wing parameters the elliptical Lift co-efficient c
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi These are the point loads acting on the wing from wing root to
4S 1 2yb
2
c the wing tip. Loads are taking two mean values and applying on the
Celliptical ¼ þ
pbc 2 wing at each strip. So wing is divided into ten cross-sectional areas.
These loads are not applying directly on the wing so then these
From the Schrenk Distribution cCL along the spanwise of the
point loads are converted into pressure.
wing is S = Surface area, b = wingspan, c = chord length
Loads are acting on each strip area from wing root (11.396/
Wo n 1:5 (0.1*0.22)) and at the tip (3.90/ (0.1*0.22))
Lnew ¼ ¼ 103:05N
2 The wing is divided into ten span wise segments with rectangu-
Pressure acted at the section of along the wingspan, lar skin thickness from root to tip. The loadings were distributed
across wise segments.
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A. N, J. Arockia Dhanraj, Jenoris Muthiya Solomon et al. Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx
3.2. Material properties ies are generally have higher values of fracture toughness then the
vinyl esters and polyester, which results in the superior fatigue
Composite materials are finished of continuous a discontinuous performances in the laminates.
fibres embedded in a matrix. The directional nature of these are The wing primary structure including skins, spars, and ribs is
fibres in the ply, bring together a directional dependence to the made of a combination of high strength carbon / epoxy with the
composite layer properties. Materials with direction dependent properties of the materials. Furthermore, fibre-reinforced compos-
properties are called as anisotropic materials. Particular character- ites give great potential to achieve desirable directional stiffness by
istics of composite materials is that stiffness and strength proper- optimising with minimal weight the fibre orientations. Commer-
ties depend on the direction of the fibres in the laminate. Carbon cially available carbon fibres are high modulus, high strength and
fibres are made from organic precursor materials by a process of intermediate modulus. For the project taken as reference as high
carbonization[11]. Current days the advanced composite materials strength carbon.
were used in aircraft industry polyacrylonitrile (pan) fibres. Epox- Determination of Composite Density
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A. N, J. Arockia Dhanraj, Jenoris Muthiya Solomon et al. Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx
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A. N, J. Arockia Dhanraj, Jenoris Muthiya Solomon et al. Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx
qc ¼ qf Vf þ qm V Poisson’s Ratio
qc ¼ ð1:76 1000 0:6Þ þ ð1:12 1000 0:4Þ m12 ¼ ðVf mf Þ þ ðVm mmÞ
m12 ¼ ð0:6 0:3Þ þ ð0:4 0:33Þ
qc ¼ 1504Kg=m3
Determination of Longitudinal Modulus E11 m12 ¼ 0:31
E11 ¼ ðEf Vf Þ þ ðEm VmÞ m21 ¼ 0:024
E11 ¼ ð240 0:6Þ þ ð3:5 0:4Þ m23 ¼ 0:442
E11 ¼ 145:86GPa Shear modulus of fibre
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A. N, J. Arockia Dhanraj, Jenoris Muthiya Solomon et al. Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx
Shear Modulus of Composite shows the moderate stress at wing skin panels and blue colour
shows lower stress at wing root section. The maximum longitudi-
Gf Gm
G12 ¼ nal stress for the glass fiber is 77.32mpa, transverse stress is per-
Vf Gm þ Vm Gf pendicular to the fiber direction of 00 fiber or y-axis of plane.
Transverse stress is 9.73mpa and in-plane shear stress is
G12 ¼ 4:32GPa 7.12mpa (tensile properties). The maximum longitudinal strain is
0.00052, transverse strain is 0.00085 and in-plane shear strain is
E22 0.00164 (compressive properties).
G23 ¼
2ð1 þ m23Þ
5. Failure analysis
G23 ¼ 3:982GPa
Composite Constitutes of Uni and Bidirectional of fiber and Failure analysis principles are used to ensure that a system is
Epoxy resin are tightening of the Fiber with different orientation capable of standing up to the specified loads, whether it fails or
and Layup. Calculation of Stiffness matrix and Composite Proper- not. There are several different types of fault parameters depend-
ties manually calculated. Five properties of the composite like ten- ing on the characteristic of the material. For parts polymer com-
sile, Compressive and shear stress properties are taken by Robert posite materials, in this project use of Tsai-wu and Tsai-hill
Jones Mechanics of Composite materials 2nd Edition [13]. The failure criteria. Tsai-wu and tsai-hill suggested the failure theory
stress and strain of the CFRPs are listed below in the following for the orthotropic materials, for the isotropic materials failure cri-
tables. terion is brittle material leads to fracture and ductile material leads
Composite materials have different orientations arrangement to maximum yielding point then in the orthotropic material like
and having different strength properties in three planar symme- composite material having different strength in tension and
tries of axis. In this paper we consider two planer symmetry. X- compression.
axis is common, Y and Z have same Mechanical strength Tsai-wu [13]
properties.
H1r1 þ H2r2 þ H6s12 þ H11ðr1Þ2 þ H22ðr2Þ2
þ H66ðs12Þ2 þ 2H12r1r2 1
4. Results and discussion
1 1
In this project, ANSYS Workbench is used to establish Finite Ele- H1 ¼ ¼ 6:5186
ment Analysis and study the performance of a Composite wing r1 ult r1C ult
T
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A. N, J. Arockia Dhanraj, Jenoris Muthiya Solomon et al. Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx
References
For the Uni-directional lamina [1] E.I. Basri, M.T.H. Sultan, M. Faizal, A.A. Basri, M.F. Abas, M.S.A. Majid, J.S.
Mandeep, K.A. Ahmad, Performance analysis of composite ply orientation in
aeronautical application of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) NACA4415 wing, J.
r3 ¼ s31 ¼ s23 ¼ 0 Mater. Res. Technol. 8 (5) (2019) 3822–3834.
[2] E. Cetinsoy, S. Dikyar, C. Hancer, K.T. Oner, E. Sirimoglu, M. Unel, M.F. Aksit,
2 32 2 3 2 32
Design and construction of a novel quad tilt-wing UAV, Mechatronics 22 (6)
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4 r1 5 6
4
r1r2 7 4 r2 5
2 5 þ þ
s12
<1
[3] G. Kanti Dibya, P.Niharranjan, Milan Tudu S R , K S Anjumol, Detailed Design of
10