| Popis: |
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are swiftly achieving their distinction in the fields of defence and agriculture. Of all the UAVs, quadcopters are widely used due to their inherent advantages like easy control and manoeuvrability. The need to operate for a longer duration under suitable payload is perhaps an exacting task. The flight time and efficiency of quadcopter typically rely on its weight. Among all the parts of a UAV, frame is the structural member that takes up the entire load. Since it constitutes up to 30% weight of the UAV, optimization of the UAV frame is highly recommended. To study this, weight of an off-the-shelf model is optimized using numerical schemes in two stages. In the first stage, optimization is done for the shape of the frame using Design of Experiments (DoEs). In the second stage, optimization is carried out for mass using topology optimization. Despite the considerable reduction of mass in the design of experiments, mass is further reduced in the second stage, i.e. topology optimization. Topology optimization yielded a complex-shaped model that is difficult to manufacture using traditional methods hence the optimized model is redesigned and validated using static structural finite element analysis. |
