Abstract
In this study, a lightweight sandwich aircraft spoiler (AS) with a high stiffness-to-weight ratio was designed. Excellent mechanical properties were achieved by the synthetic use of topology optimization (TO), lattice structure techniques, and high-performance materials, i.e., titanium alloy and aluminum alloy. TO was first utilized to optimize the traditional aircraft spoiler to search for the stiffest structure with a limited material volume, where titanium alloy and aluminum alloy were used for key joints and other parts of the AS, respectively. We then empirically replaced the fine features inside the optimized AS with 3D kagome lattices to support the shell, resulting in a lightweight sandwich AS. Numerical simulations were conducted to show that the designed sandwich AS exhibited good mechanical properties, e.g., high bending rigidity, with a reduction in weight by approximately 80% when compared with that of the initial design model. Finally, we fabricated the designed model with photosensitive resin using a 3D printing technique.
Highlights
A spoiler in aircrafts is a piece of equipment aimed at intentionally reducing the lift component of an airfoil in a controlled way [1]
Showing a promising perspective, with the ability of reducing geometric intricacy restrictions imposed on topology optimization by conventional manufacturing, several key problems must be dealt with for additive manufacturing (AM), e.g., the support structure design [8,9,10]
The maximum stress of this structure occurs at the joints, as expected, with a maximum value of 256.6 MPa
Summary
A spoiler in aircrafts is a piece of equipment aimed at intentionally reducing the lift component of an airfoil in a controlled way [1]. Considering the demanding requirements for a high stiffness-to-weight ratio in the aerospace industry, a spoiler should be designed to be lightweight and with a high stiffness [2]. They have been designed using a trial-and-error method, which is always time-consuming and normally too conservative. The main reason behind this is the gap between the complexity and intricacy of an optimum solution and traditional manufacturing techniques, various manufacturing constraints are considered [6] This gap has been significantly overcome with the rapid development of additive manufacturing (AM), e.g., 3D printing [7]. Various cores have been proposed, e.g., tetrahedron [11], 3D kagome [12], pyramid [13], honeycomb [14], origami [15], etc
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