The influence of spar location on the elastic deformation and the weight estimation of a swept-back, high altitude, solar powered flying wing UAV

Alsahlani, A; Rahulan, T

Abstract

In this paper, a design procedure is introduced for an aft swept flying wing aircraft to study the influence of the spar location on the performance of the resulting wing geometry. The study was conducted using an in-house low fidelity design/optimisation tool which was built within the MATLAB environment. The tool consists of a quasi-3D aerodynamics model and a composite structure model in addition to an optimiser code. The case study involves a swept-back solar-powered flying wing UAV. Four design cases with different spar location were introduced and the results of these cases were then compared. The main finding was that the spar location has an enormous impact on the structural behaviour and thus the aerodynamic performance and stability. Moreover, if the spar location was behind the aerodynamic centre line, the wing torsion due to aerodynamic loads can mitigate the elastic deflection in a beneficial manner to enhance the stability. However, this will result in greater structural weight.

Citation

Alsahlani, A., & Rahulan, T. (2017, July). The influence of spar location on the elastic deformation and the weight estimation of a swept-back, high altitude, solar powered flying wing UAV. Presented at 7th European Conference for Aeronautics And Space Sciences (EUCASS), Milan, Italy

• Presentation Conference Type: Other
• Conference Name: 7th European Conference for Aeronautics And Space Sciences (EUCASS)
• Conference Location: Milan, Italy
• Start Date: Jul 3, 2017
• End Date: Jul 6, 2017
• Acceptance Date: Feb 1, 2017
• Online Publication Date: Jul 2, 2017
• Publication Date: Jul 2, 2017
• Deposit Date: Aug 9, 2017
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.13009/EUCASS2017-240
• Publisher URL: http://www.eucass2017.eu/
• Related Public URLs: https://doi.org/10.13009/EUCASS2017-240; https://www.eucass-proceedings.eu/
• Additional Information: Event Type : Conference