Weight Reduction of C-Drone Body Structure

Abstract

UTHM has successfully developed a high payload cargo drone, namely the C-Drone, with a weight of over 400 kg. Although this drone has successfully passed the hovering test, it is believed that the weight of the drone can be reduced or optimized. The purpose of this research work is to reduce the weight of the C-Drone's main body structure. Therefore, tensile tests on Aluminium 6061 are reviewed to obtain the actual mechanical properties of the current C-Drone material. This study will run a structural analysis of the current C-Drone design and run topology optimisation on the current C-Drone structure for weight reduction using the software SolidWorks. To achieve the objectives of this project, the topology optimisation focuses on the main body of the C-Drone structure. Before the optimisation can be done, the input material properties need to be defined beforehand. The mechanical properties of the Aluminium 6061 were obtained from experimental data that involved the tensile and flexural tests of the material. These values are inserted into the simulation software, SolidWorks, and structural analysis for the current design. From this analysis, the critical part or area caused by the loads and internal stress was determined. From the result obtained, in order to ensure the weight is reduced without reducing the structural rigidity, the area is excluded from part removal for the topology optimisation. The topology process runs the analysis again if the results from the optimisation show the structure is unable to withstand the total load. The best results have been obtained from the series of simulations, and they show the suggestion for the most suitable modification strategy. It also shows the comparison of the current design of the body structure of the C-Drone with the software SolidWorks. The result of the stress, deformation, displacement, and safety factors of the construction is within acceptable limits. From this study, it can be concluded that the current design of body structure C-Drone is overdesigned because when the support of the current body structure C-Drone has been discarded, the result is still in the range of yield strength.