EXPERIENCE OF COMPOSITE MATERIALS APPLICATION IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF EXPERIMENTAL TUBE LAUNCH UAV

Abstract

High flight performance of the unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is achieved by the minimum weight airframe, powerplant, and other useful equipment and its elements. One of the effective way of minimizing the structural weight is using of composite materials based on glass / carbon / boro plastics. This is especially significant for tube launch UAV in which swings of the aerodynamic surfaces such as wing is within 1 ... 2 m, the maximum thickness of the profile is 0.008 ... . 0,02 m., aspect ratio is 10..12, that is dictated by the strict geometric constraints of the UAV in transport configuration and technical characteristics.The aim is analytical and experimental research of wing production technology with using of foam filler.Numerical experiment. Research is conducted in the MSC Nastran environment. Boundary restrictions when calculating the minimum weight criteria are the following: the maximum stress is 250 MPa; minimum is 100 MPa. The way of reinforced material styling, the value of overlapping upper and lower layer, the amount of foam material, the effect of temperature and humidity on experimental samples were studied.As a result of studies it was found that theoretical minimum weight (0,048 kg) of wing for the given boundary conditions is achieved when there are parameters of power material: the change in thickness of plating on the scope console is within 0.01 ... 0.064 mm; maximum stress is 249 MPa minimum is 125 MPa.Experimental samples of wing were tested by full-scale UAV flight experiment on "Sokil - 2". There were no critical damages in the design of consoles for flight speed range of 50 ... 90 km/h, takeoff mass 3 ... 6, takeoff weight of UAV 2.8 ... 3.5 kg vertical accelerations at parachute releasing 3 ... 4. This confirms the possibility of using the proposed technology for aerodynamic surfaces producing of the experimental tube launch UAV.