PROPOSAL OF A METHODOLOGY OF AERONAUTIC STRUCTURES DESIGN USING COMPOSITES MATERIALS

This paper aims to present a methodology for design of structures of an UAV in composite material (carbon fiber and epoxy resin) which mainly assists the steps of the Preliminary and Detailed Design. This methodology was evaluated by a case study that consists of structural components of an UAV. For this, looked up the most critical load cases, which were originally used in a simplified finite element model of aluminum and the margin of safety of the project should be greater than or equal to two. Then it was developed a more complex finite element model validated by comparing the results with the previous model. Finally, the aluminum composite material were replaced for a laminated shell, then the its cross section (number of layers) were changed so that the safety margin remained greater than or equal to two, using the criterion of failure of Tsai - Wu. The results show clearly the superiority of the structural composite material and the various possibilities for optimizing the structure. Changing only the number of layers, there were reductions of more than 25% of the thickness of structural elements