Structural comparison of three methods of manufacture for UAV wing

The application of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) has been around since the early 1900s, mainly in the application of war-faring where the most technological advancements have been made. With the rise of different platforms UAVs can offer such as aerial photography, data collection, humanitarian aid and disaster reliefs; it meant that anyone would find UAVs useful. Coupled with the exponential rise of Additive Manufacturing (AM) such as 3D printing, designing and fabricating UAV structure have never been easier and quicker. AM application in UAV platform have achieved feats in production time and material weight savings where structural and design optimization research have been put in place. Mathematical analysis such as Finite Element Analysis (FEA), Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) are utilized to optimize the performance, design and structural integrity of the aircraft. In this report, the author would be comparing the designs of a conventional manufactured UAV wing against two other AM UAV wings in terms of their structural integrity. The methodology of this report is to have a predetermined wing profile dimension with different structural designs of the ribs, strut, spar and stringers of the wing based on conventional and AM methods of fabrication. CFD analysis would be used to find out the loading conditions of the UAV to aid in the calculation of FEA structural analysis. Topology optimization would be used in the latter stages for weight reduction of the wing in the event of the wing failing in the simulation stages.Bachelor of Engineering (Mechanical Engineering