Eventos Anais de eventos
COBEM 2021
26th International Congress of Mechanical Engineering
Multidisciplinary procedure for loads and stress analysis of RPA wings
Submission Author:
Ana Luiza de Souza Maran , SC
Co-Authors:
Ana Luiza de Souza Maran, Carlos Eduardo de Souza, Marcos Daniel de Freitas Awruch
Presenter: Ana Luiza de Souza Maran
doi://10.26678/ABCM.COBEM2021.COB2021-1311
Abstract
Remotely piloted aircraft, RPA, have a growing variety of applications over the past decade. During flight, such aircraft are subjected to distributed aerodynamic loads that vary according to the operation conditions inside the flight envelope, what usually leads to the necessity of performing a large number of multidisciplinary analyses to assess the structural safety. The present study offers a procedure for coupled analysis of loads and stress on RPA’s wings components under distributed aerodynamic loads in various critical flight conditions. The study model is an aircraft of approximately 5 kg designed for the SAE Aerodesign competition. It is analyzed with a CAE Finite Element software, and a Python script is used to conduct all phases of a traditional static analysis: the preliminary analysis, pre-processing, problem simulation and post-processing phases, respectively. A routine was built using MATLAB language to build the combined envelope of gust and maneuver for prescribed mass and design velocities, identify the critical flight conditions and distribute the aerodynamic loads on the wing. The main program receives the lift, drag and pitch moment distributions for each of the extreme points in the envelope, resulting in multiple load cases. A procedure was developed to automatically convert the distributed aerodynamic loads to concentrated forces on the Finite Element mesh, through a Python script. Static linear or non-linear analysis can be performed. Finally, the resulting maximum and minimum stresses computed on the structural components of the wing are evaluated according to the failure criterion of the Maximum Normal Stress for anisotropic fragile materials. The developed procedure presents itself as a useful academic project/study tool for reducing the preliminary design phase duration and improve the whole design cycle. It has already shown satisfactory results for the solution of problems related to the initial phases of the structural design of RPAs, although it allows for improvement of the whole process, such as coupling with optimization routines.
Keywords
Aerodynamic Loads, Finite Elements, Automated procedures, Stress Analysis, Wings components
