See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/359451812

Design and analysis of a tail sitter (VTOL) UAV composite wing

Conference Paper in Materials Today: Proceedings · March 2022

DOI: 10.1016/j.matpr.2022.03.231

CITATIONS READS

0 160

8 authors, including:

Akshayraj Nagaraj Joshuva Arockia Dhanraj

Dayananda Sagar College of Engineering Hindustan University
4 PUBLICATIONS 0 CITATIONS 114 PUBLICATIONS 828 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Jenoris Muthiya Srikanth Salyan

Dayananda Sagar College of Engineering National Institute of Technology Tiruchirappalli
45 PUBLICATIONS 328 CITATIONS 13 PUBLICATIONS 86 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Raphael - The Smart Helmet View project

Dynamic Task Allocation for Mobile Robot Teams based on Linear Integer Programming View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Joshuva Arockia Dhanraj on 01 April 2022.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

 Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Materials Today: Proceedings

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/matpr

Design and analysis of a tail sitter (VTOL) UAV composite wing

Akshayraj N a, Joshuva Arockia Dhanraj b, Jenoris Muthiya Solomon c,⇑, Srikanth Salyan a,
Mohankumar Subramaniam d, Manju Mohan b, Ramanathan Kuppan Chetty b, R Christu Paul e
a
Department of Aeronautical Engineering, Dayananda Sagar College of Engineering, Bengaluru 560078, India
b
Centre for Automation and Robotics (ANRO), Department of Mechatronics Engineering, Hindustan Institute of Technology and Science, Padur, Chennai 603103, India
c
Department of Automobile Engineering, Dayananda Sagar College of Engineering, Bengaluru 560078, India
d
Department of Automobile Engineering, Kumaraguru College of Technology, Coimbatore 641006, India
e
Department of Automobile Engineering, Hindustan Institute of Technology and Science, Padur, Chennai 603103, India

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In recent years the design and development of various classes of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV’s) has
Available online xxxx grown significantly. It is a well-known fact that the utilization of composite structures will reduce the
weight of the aircraft structure by 30–50%. It is possible to tailor the strength and stiffness properties
Keywords: of composite structures by adopting different material or lamination configurations. In this work redesign
Composite wing of the Tail Sitter (Vertical Take Off and Landing/VTOL) UAV wing is carried out in order to improve the
Finite element analysis performance by reduction of the weight. Numerical investigation is carried out to reduce the weight of
Lift
the wing by replacing the existing Aluminum frame with different ply configurations of CFRP and
Tail sitter
Unmanned aerial vehicles
GFRP and also by reducing number of spars. The strength and stiffness of the UAV wing was analysed
Vertical take-off and landing by Finite Element Method. Baseline analysis was carried out on the Aluminium structure by applying
the span wise lift distribution along the wing based on Dr Ing Oster Schrenk’s Approximation method.
For the VTOL UAV configuration the wing has to carry the motor, so structurally wing should have higher
stiffness-to weight ratio to carry the high loads. The present work was focussed on analysis of different
ply configurations of CFRP as well as GFRP using FE methods in order to get better performance in terms
of weight reduction. The analysis was done by configuring the whole wing frame along with spars and
ribs, which gave high stiffness to the wing compared to the Conventional wing. From the CFD analysis,
it is evident that composite wing had less deformation compared to the aluminium wing and the wing
structure was redesigned using CFRP and GFRP based composites. Effect of lay-up configuration on the
performance is also studied for composite wing. Due to high stiffness to weight ratio of composite wing
it is found there is a reduction in weight of the wing by 44.17% compare to aluminium. A redesign of the
wing is done by having a composite frame of two spars and five Ribs.
Copyright Ó 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the First International Con-
ference on Advances in Mechanical Engineering and Material Science.

1. Introduction of last mile items, surveillance and reconnaissance. Their main

objective was to carry out long-term surveillance flights at differ-
The Aviation industry is one of the world’s fastest-growing sec- ent altitudes, speeds and sometimes in rapidly changing weather
tors. In recent years the design and development of various classes conditions. The configuration of the wings is essential element of
of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has grown significantly, vary- an aircraft. Advances in technology the material science have led
ing from short-range remotely operated micro aerial vehicles to to composite materials to be used worldwide in aircraft structure,
large jet-powered and autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. with a superiority in high structural stiffness and substantial
UAVs are used for a number of purposes such as tracking, shipping weight reduction. Many factors impact the selection of materials
the much more important of which is strength combined with
lightness. Composite structures consist of laminates assembled
⇑ Corresponding author at: Department of Automobile Engineering, Dayananda from layers of varying angles of fiber [1]. The thickness of the sheet
Sagar College of Engineering, Kumaraswamy Layout, Bengaluru, 560078, India. is usually fixed, and angles of fiber orientation are mostly limited
E-mail address: [email protected] (J.M. Solomon).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2022.03.231
2214-7853/Copyright Ó 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Selection and peer-review under responsibility of the scientific committee of the First International Conference on Advances in Mechanical Engineering and Material Science.

Please cite this article as: A. N, J. Arockia Dhanraj, Jenoris Muthiya Solomon et al., Design and analysis of a tail sitter (VTOL) UAV composite wing, Materials
Today: Proceedings, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matpr.2022.03.231
A. N, J. Arockia Dhanraj, Jenoris Muthiya Solomon et al. Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

to distinct setting such as 0°, ±30°, ±45°, ±75° and 90°.Fig. 1.Fig. 2. Table 2
The listing of forces and Pressure acting on the Semi wing span.
Table 1.Table 2.Table 3.Table 4.Table 5.Table 6.Table 5.1.Table 5.2.
The requirements for the aircraft wing are high stiffness, high Strip Area Wing Root-tip Lift Load N PressurePa
strength, high toughness and low weight, in the field of aerospace 1 11.396 518
engineering, the structural analysis based on the finite element 2 11.330 515
method is considered to be very effective numerical simulation 3 11.200 509.1
4 10.997 499.86
and optimisation technique [2]. Carbon fibre reinforced polymer
5 10.711 486.81
(CFRPs) is commonly referred to as lightweight and strong materi- 6 10.344 470.18
als consisting of different types of fibres such as carbon, Kevlar, 7 9.959 452.68
glass and aramid as reinforcements incorporated as matrix in 8 9.219 419.04
polymer-based resin. The developed fabric (reinforcement and 9 7.951 361.42
10 3.900 177.27
matrix) can be shaped in a double curvature which is required
for aerodynamic shapes. Additionally, core sandwich construction
materials are capable of separating energy physically, and poten-
tially transmit shearing forces through the sandwich typical types Table 3
of core used in aircraft applications are rubber, honeycomb, and Mechanical properties of carbon fiber and epoxy resin.

wood. Structurally, the composite itself depends on the fibre–ma- Si No Material Carbon Fiber Epoxy
trix bond properties and the degree of transmitted load [3]. There- properties Tenax Resin
HTS45-3000 Araldite
LY-5052
01 Tensile 240 3.7–4.7
Modulus
(E) GPa
02 Tensile 4500 –
strength
(MPa)
03 Density 1760 1120
(Kg/m3)
04 Volume 0.6 0.4
fraction
(%)
05 Poisson 0.3 0.33
ratio
06 Elongation 1.9 –
at break
07 Shear 92.307 1.76
Modulus
(GPa)

Fig. 1. CATIA model of wing.

Table 4
Mechanical Properties of Carbon Fiber Reinforced
Polymer.

Properties Metric
Density q(kg/m3) 1504
Young’s Modulus in X direction (E1) 145.8620
Young’s Modulus in Y direction (E2) 11.485
Young’s Modulus in Z direction (E3) 11.485
Poisson ratio in XY direction 0.3120
Poisson ratio in YZ direction 0.024
Poisson ratio in ZX direction 0.442
Shear Modulus in X direction (G12) 4.32
Shear Modulus in Y direction (G23) 3.982
Shear Modulus in Z direction (G31) 4.306

Fig. 2. Ribs and Spar designed in CATIA V5.

Table 5
Maximum Stress in X and Y Directions of CFRPs.

Material Properties Metric

Table 1
Wing Specifications. Tensile stress in X direction (r1t) 1.11
Tensile stress in Y direction (r2t) 0.0630
SI. No Wing Parameters Specifications
Tensile stress in Z direction (r3t) 0.0630
1 Wing Span (m) 2 Compressive stress in X direction (r1c)
0.0850
2 Root Chord of wing (m) 0.220 Compressive stress in Y direction (r2c)
0.1094
3 Wing Area (m2) 0.44 Compressive stress in Z direction (r3c)
0.1094
4 Aspect Ratio 9.09 Shear stress in XY direction 0.0987
5 Tip Chord of wing (m) 0.220 Shear stress in YZ direction 0.0994
7 Section profile NACA 0012 Shear stress in ZX direction 0.0987

2
A. N, J. Arockia Dhanraj, Jenoris Muthiya Solomon et al. Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

Table 5.1
Failure Analysis of CFRPs and GFRPs.

SI No Material r1MPa r2MPa s12MPa Tsai-Wu Tsai-Hill Results

1 Glass Fiber Reinforced Polymers 500GSM 77.326 9.739 7.127
0.3985 0.0221 Safe
2 Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymers 500GSM 64.513 9.758 6.624
0.3248 0.0210 Safe
3 Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymer 250GSM 41.413 2.232 1.999
0.2483 0.0017 Safe

Table 5.2
Comparison of Baseline model made up of Aluminium to CFRPs and GFRP.

SI No Material Density Weight in Total Deformation (m) Strain Stress

(Kg=m3 ) (N) (Pa)

01 Aluminium 7075-T6 2810 20.547 0.0065 0.0169 8.7029e7

02 Glass Fibre Reinforced Polymers (GFRPs) 1904 14.715 0.00445 – –
03 Carbon Fibre Reinforced Polymers (CFRPs) 1504 11.477 0.002856 – –

Table 6
Maximum Strain in X and Y direction of CFRPs.

Material Properties Metric

Tensile strain in X direction 0.0076
Tensile strain in Y direction 0.0055
Tensile strain in Z direction 0.0055
Compressive strain in X direction
0.0005826
Compressive strain in Y direction
0.0095
Compressive strain in Z direction
0.0095
Shear strain in XY direction 0.000676
Shear strain in YZ direction 0.0087
Shear strain in ZX direction 0.0087

Fig. 4. Graph of Cl/Cd ratio v/s AOA (angle of attack) for three different AR wing’s.

called airfoil, and lift is produced by difference in pressure distribu-

tion over the surface of the airfoil. The CAD modelling of the Wing
is done by using CATIA V5 R19. Then wing model was imported to
ANSYS workbench for meshing. To carry out the structural Analysis
of Composite wing in ANSYS workbench, it consists three main
workflow stages such as, ANSYS Composite Pre-post, Structural
Analysis and Postprocessor solver. VTOL UAV with maximum
take-off weight 4 kg and operating speed 20 m/s are the design
boundary conditions. Design of the wing consists of estimating
the wing parameters[5]. The preliminary design of scaled model
Fig. 3. Graph of lift v/s AOA (angle of attack) for three different AR wing’s. was based on the data available from the full-scale wing. In tail sit-
ter vertical take-off and landing UAV wings are not meet the esti-
fore, applied loads are subjected to the deformation pattern in the mated lift at cruise condition and it wants high lift so increasing
matrix surrounding fibre. the wingspan to achieve an efficient lift for the VTOL (UAV)[6].
In the field of aerospace engineering, the structural analysis Wing consists of two spars, which is front spar nearer to the lead-
based on the finite element method is considered to be very effec- ing edge and aft spar is nearer to trailing edge. Ribs are equidistant
tive numerical simulation and optimization technique. Carbon between one meter wing span. NACA0012 airfoil is selected
fiber reinforced polymer (CFRP) is commonly referred to as light- because of its symmetrical aerofoil property, which is very much
weight and strong materials consisting of different types of fibers needed for VTOL UAV wing to get equal pressure distribution on
such as carbon, Kevlar, glass and aramid as reinforcements incor- both the surfaces of the wing during take-off[7].
porated as matrix in polymer-based resin [4].
3. Performance analysis of wing
2. Geometric model of a wing
The VTOL UAV with Maximum take-off weight 4 kg and operat-
Wing is one of the most important components of an aircraft, as ing speed is 20 m/s, there is a need of high aspect ratio wing to gen-
it is the primary lift generating source. Cross section of the wing is erate enough lift to keep the UAV in flight in cruise condition[8].
3
A. N, J. Arockia Dhanraj, Jenoris Muthiya Solomon et al. Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

The performance analysis is done for the wing with different aspect
ratio and its corresponding lift and co-efficient of lit to co-efficient
drag (Cl/Cd) ratio is measured for different angle of attacks, as
shown in the below figures (Fig. 3 and Fig. 4).Fig. 5.Fig. 6.Fig. 7.
Fig. 8.Fig. 9.Fig. 10.Fig. 11.Fig. 12.Fig. 13.Fig. 14.Fig. 15.Fig. 16.
Fig. 17.Fig. 18.Fig. 19.Fig. 20.Fig. 21.
It is clear from the performance analysis that, as the aspect ratio
(AR) increases maximum lift and Cl/Cd ratio increases. Hence the
aspect ratio of the wing is increased to 9.09 form the baseline
4.51 to have more lift.

Fig. 7. Wing Model Imported to ANSYS workbench.

Fig. 5. Span wise load distribution.

Fig. 6. Span wise Load distribution.

4
A. N, J. Arockia Dhanraj, Jenoris Muthiya Solomon et al. Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

Fig. 8. Dividing the wing into ten Segments.

Fig. 10. Mesh of wing with segmented wing.

3.1. Boundary condition

One of the most critical aspects in the design of the wing is the
assigning lift load. In this analysis two major boundary conditions
are applied to the wing. The attachment of wing root to the fuse-
lage will be fixed. All the displacement and rotations of wing root
section are set to be zero. Based on Dr Ing oster schrenk’s approx-
imation method span wise lift distribution load applied on the
wing[9]. The most aerodynamically efficient and practical wing
have an elliptical lift distribution throughout the wing span. In
some the case loading distribution is different for different types
of wings. In my cases wing is symmetrical and rectangular. Where
in aircraft structure 80% of the load acting on the wing and 20% of
the load acted on the fuselage. So structurally wing as high
strength to carry high loads[10].
From the Aerodynamics Fig. 11. Mesh of ribs and spars on a wing.
L = n*W
Where, L = Lift produced by the Aircraft, n = Load factor,
Lnew
W = weight of aircraft. P¼ð Þ
Using the wing parameters the elliptical Lift co-efficient c
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi These are the point loads acting on the wing from wing root to
4S 1
2yb
2
c  the wing tip. Loads are taking two mean values and applying on the
Celliptical ¼ þ
pbc 2 wing at each strip. So wing is divided into ten cross-sectional areas.
These loads are not applying directly on the wing so then these
From the Schrenk Distribution cCL along the spanwise of the
point loads are converted into pressure.
wing is S = Surface area, b = wingspan, c = chord length
Loads are acting on each strip area from wing root (11.396/
Wo  n  1:5 (0.1*0.22)) and at the tip (3.90/ (0.1*0.22))
Lnew ¼ ¼ 103:05N
2 The wing is divided into ten span wise segments with rectangu-
Pressure acted at the section of along the wingspan, lar skin thickness from root to tip. The loadings were distributed
across wise segments.

Fig. 9. Graph indicating the convergence study of mesh.

5
A. N, J. Arockia Dhanraj, Jenoris Muthiya Solomon et al. Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

Fig. 12. View of boundary conditions applied.

Fig. 13. Total Deformation Aluminium.

Fig. 14. Von-Mises Stress.

3.2. Material properties ies are generally have higher values of fracture toughness then the
vinyl esters and polyester, which results in the superior fatigue
Composite materials are finished of continuous a discontinuous performances in the laminates.
fibres embedded in a matrix. The directional nature of these are The wing primary structure including skins, spars, and ribs is
fibres in the ply, bring together a directional dependence to the made of a combination of high strength carbon / epoxy with the
composite layer properties. Materials with direction dependent properties of the materials. Furthermore, fibre-reinforced compos-
properties are called as anisotropic materials. Particular character- ites give great potential to achieve desirable directional stiffness by
istics of composite materials is that stiffness and strength proper- optimising with minimal weight the fibre orientations. Commer-
ties depend on the direction of the fibres in the laminate. Carbon cially available carbon fibres are high modulus, high strength and
fibres are made from organic precursor materials by a process of intermediate modulus. For the project taken as reference as high
carbonization[11]. Current days the advanced composite materials strength carbon.
were used in aircraft industry polyacrylonitrile (pan) fibres. Epox- Determination of Composite Density

6
A. N, J. Arockia Dhanraj, Jenoris Muthiya Solomon et al. Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

Fig. 15. Total Deformation of CFRPs.

Fig. 16. Longitudinal Stress.

Fig. 17. Transverse Stress.

Fig. 18. In plane Shear stress of CFRPs.

7
A. N, J. Arockia Dhanraj, Jenoris Muthiya Solomon et al. Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

Fig. 19. Longitudinal Strain of CFRPs.

Fig. 20. Transverse Strain of CFRPs.

Fig. 21. In-Plane Shear strain of CFRPs.

qc ¼ qf  Vf þ qm  V Poisson’s Ratio

qc ¼ ð1:76  1000  0:6Þ þ ð1:12  1000  0:4Þ m12 ¼ ðVf  mf Þ þ ðVm  mmÞ
m12 ¼ ð0:6  0:3Þ þ ð0:4  0:33Þ
qc ¼ 1504Kg=m3
Determination of Longitudinal Modulus E11 m12 ¼ 0:31
E11 ¼ ðEf  Vf Þ þ ðEm  VmÞ m21 ¼ 0:024
E11 ¼ ð240  0:6Þ þ ð3:5  0:4Þ m23 ¼ 0:442
E11 ¼ 145:86GPa Shear modulus of fibre

Determination of Transverse Modulus E22 Ef

Gf ¼
2ð1 þ Vf Þ
Ef  Em
E22 ¼ ð Þ
Vf  Em þ Vm  Ef
Gf ¼ 92:307GPa
E22 ¼ 11:485GPa
Gm ¼ 1:76GPa

8
A. N, J. Arockia Dhanraj, Jenoris Muthiya Solomon et al. Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

Shear Modulus of Composite shows the moderate stress at wing skin panels and blue colour
shows lower stress at wing root section. The maximum longitudi-
Gf  Gm
G12 ¼ nal stress for the glass fiber is 77.32mpa, transverse stress is per-
Vf  Gm þ Vm  Gf pendicular to the fiber direction of 00 fiber or y-axis of plane.
Transverse stress is 9.73mpa and in-plane shear stress is
G12 ¼ 4:32GPa 7.12mpa (tensile properties). The maximum longitudinal strain is
0.00052, transverse strain is 0.00085 and in-plane shear strain is
E22 0.00164 (compressive properties).
G23 ¼
2ð1 þ m23Þ
5. Failure analysis
G23 ¼ 3:982GPa
Composite Constitutes of Uni and Bidirectional of fiber and Failure analysis principles are used to ensure that a system is
Epoxy resin are tightening of the Fiber with different orientation capable of standing up to the specified loads, whether it fails or
and Layup. Calculation of Stiffness matrix and Composite Proper- not. There are several different types of fault parameters depend-
ties manually calculated. Five properties of the composite like ten- ing on the characteristic of the material. For parts polymer com-
sile, Compressive and shear stress properties are taken by Robert posite materials, in this project use of Tsai-wu and Tsai-hill
Jones Mechanics of Composite materials 2nd Edition [13]. The failure criteria. Tsai-wu and tsai-hill suggested the failure theory
stress and strain of the CFRPs are listed below in the following for the orthotropic materials, for the isotropic materials failure cri-
tables. terion is brittle material leads to fracture and ductile material leads
Composite materials have different orientations arrangement to maximum yielding point then in the orthotropic material like
and having different strength properties in three planar symme- composite material having different strength in tension and
tries of axis. In this paper we consider two planer symmetry. X- compression.
axis is common, Y and Z have same Mechanical strength Tsai-wu [13]
properties.
H1r1 þ H2r2 þ H6s12 þ H11ðr1Þ2 þ H22ðr2Þ2
þ H66ðs12Þ2 þ 2H12r1r2  1
4. Results and discussion
1 1
In this project, ANSYS Workbench is used to establish Finite Ele- H1 ¼  
  ¼
6:5186
ment Analysis and study the performance of a Composite wing r1 ult r1C ult
T

with large Aspect Ratio. Wing model is designed in CATIA V5R19

and import the model into ansys 16.0 workbench. The wing is 1
divided into ten span wise segments with rectangular wing. Thick- H11 ¼     ¼ 3:8158
ness is constant from root to tip. The loadings were distributed
r1T ult  r1C ult
across span wise segments.
H2 ¼ r21T ult
r21C ult = 5.5821
Based on grid independence study the lower elements having ð Þ ð Þ
shown high deformation and higher elements having linear defor- 1
mation or less deformation. From forty-five thousand elements to H22 ¼     ¼ 99:6810
eighty-eight thousand elements have constant deformation so we r2 ult  r2C ult
T

have taken common difference these number of elements to carry

out the analysis. H6 ¼ 0

4.1. Aluminium wing with 1.5 mm thick s12 ¼ 0:001997

The maximum deformation of the aluminium made wing is 1

H66 ¼ ¼ 82:6446
6.65 mm. The maximum deflection occurs at the wing tip and less ðs12Þ2 ult
deflection at wing root, it can be reduced by changing or use of car-
bon fibre reinforced polymers. von-mises stress of the aluminium 1  
H12 ¼ 1
ðH1 þ H2Þr
ðH11 þ H22Þr2 ¼ 9:7514
made wing is 87.02mpa. von-mises stress distribution less towards 2r2
the leading and trailing edges and decreases towards the wing tip. Tsai-Hill [13]
During the deformation at upper skin panels is act as compression Based on the distortion energy theory Tsai-hill proposed the
and lower skin of the wing is act as tensile. lamina has failed. Tsai-hill is one of the material failure theories,
commonly used in orthotropic composite material. Having differ-
4.2. Glass fiber Reinforced polymer (GFRPs) with three plies and ent strength in compression and tension.
0.5 mm thick fiber
ðG2 þ G3Þðr1Þ2 þ ðG1 þ G3Þðr2Þ2 þ ðG1 þ G2Þðr3Þ2
2G3r1r2
Glass Fibre composite 3plies with 0.5 mm thickness of the fiber
2G2r1r3
2G1r2r3 þ 2G4ðs23Þ2 þ 2G5ðs13Þ2 þ 2G6ðs12Þ2
shows the maximum deformation 4.44 mm, compared to the alu-
<1
minium its lower deformation[12]. Composite having different ori-
entation with respect to different strength in tensile and
The components of G1, G2, G3, G4, G5 and G6 are strength cri-
compressive. Plots of the longitudinal stress, transverse stress
terion of depends upon the failure strength and Followed below
and in-plane shear stress are shown below. Maximum deformation
in case of wing is high at the wing tip and less at wing root. Longi- 1 2 1
G1 ¼  ðh i2
h  i2 Þ
tudinal stress is towards the fiber direction, higher stress is shown 2
in red colour at inside the spar and ribs, outer layer green colour
r2 Ult T
r1 ult
T

9
A. N, J. Arockia Dhanraj, Jenoris Muthiya Solomon et al. Materials Today: Proceedings xxx (xxxx) xxx

1 1 mance in terms of deformation by having 4.4% less deformation.

G2 ¼  ðh  i2
2 Orientation of six plies (00, 450 and 900) symmetric with
r1 ult
T
0.25 mm thickness fiber has lower deformation and compared to
the three plies (00, 450 and 900) with 0.5 mm thickness fiber
1   T  i2
G3 ¼ 1=½ r1 ult composite.
2
2
Declaration of Competing Interest
1 1
G4 ¼ ðð Þ
2 ½ðs12Þult  The authors declare that they have no known competing finan-
      cial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared
r1 ¼ r1T ult; r2 ¼ r2T ult; r3 ¼ r2T ult; s12 ¼ ðs12Þult: to influence the work reported in this paper.

References
For the Uni-directional lamina [1] E.I. Basri, M.T.H. Sultan, M. Faizal, A.A. Basri, M.F. Abas, M.S.A. Majid, J.S.
Mandeep, K.A. Ahmad, Performance analysis of composite ply orientation in
aeronautical application of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) NACA4415 wing, J.
r3 ¼ s31 ¼ s23 ¼ 0 Mater. Res. Technol. 8 (5) (2019) 3822–3834.
[2] E. Cetinsoy, S. Dikyar, C. Hancer, K.T. Oner, E. Sirimoglu, M. Unel, M.F. Aksit,
2 32 2 3 2 32
Design and construction of a novel quad tilt-wing UAV, Mechatronics 22 (6)
 2 (2012) 723–745.
4 r1 5
6
4
r1r2 7 4 r2 5
2 5 þ þ
s12
<1
[3] G. Kanti Dibya, P.Niharranjan, Milan Tudu S R , K S Anjumol, Detailed Design of

r1T ult r T ðs12Þult a Tail-Sitter IIST, Thiruvananthapuram,2019.

r1 ult
T 2 ult [4] Joyel K Joseph, Avinash Babu, Design, Modal and Stress Analysis of Aircraft
Composite Wing, Int. J. Eng. Res. Technol. 2015 , 3,19:61–71.
Finite Element Analysis findings that after integrating required [5] K.P. Shabeer, M.A. Murtaza, Optimization of aircraft wing with composite
material, Int. J. Eng. Res. Technol. 2 (6) (2015) 2471–2477.
improvements in different designs to adjust the fibre thickness of [6] Kavya, Guguloth, and BC Raghukumar Reddy. ‘‘Design and finite element
500gsm and 250gsm, the wing met both design specifications analysis of aircraft wing using ribs and spars.” Int. J. Magaz. Eng. Technol.
and failure criteria. The constructed wing was found to be safe Manage. Res. 2015,2, 11:1443:1455.
[7] F. Michaud, H. Dalir, S. Joncas, Structural design and optimization of an Aircraft
for use under the specified operating conditions. Morphing Wing: Composite Skin, J. Aircraft 55 (1) (2018) 195–211.
[8] M.S. Prabhu, J. Naveen Raj, G. Vignesh, ‘‘Optimization of unmanned aerial
vehicle wing structure, Int. J. Innov. Sci. Eng. Technol. 2 (3) (2015) 28–34.
6. Conclusion
[9] Schrenk Schrenk, Oskar. ‘‘A simple approximation method for obtaining the
spanwise lift distribution.” The Aeronautical Journal ,1941 45,370 : 331–336.
In this project, ANSYS Workbench is utilized to establish Finite [10] O. Sugar Gabor, A. Koreanschi, R.M. Botez, Optimization of an Unmanned
Aerial System’wing using a flexible skin morphing wing, SAE Int. J. Aerospace 6
Element Analysis and study the performance of a composite wing
(1) (2013) 115–121.
with large aspect ratio. One of the major members to be considered [11] R.W. Sullivan, Y. Hwang, M. Rais-Rohani, T. Lacy, Structural analysis and
during the structural design is aircraft wing, as major part of loads testing of an ultralight unmanned-aerial-vehicle carbon-composite wing, J.
is carried by wing which includes, bending loads by front and rear Aircraft 46 (3) (2009) 814–820.
[12] C. Venkateshwar Reddy, P. Ramesh Babu, R. Ramnarayanan, D. Das, Mechanical
spar and shear loads by ribs. Fiber orientation of Carbon (00, 450 Characterization Of Unidirectional Carbon And Glass/Epoxy Reinforced
and 900) symmetric shows the better results than compared to Composites For High Strength Applications, Mater. Today Proc. 4 (2) (2017)
other orientations. It is found that composite wing has reduced 3166–3172.
[13] R.M. Jones, Mechanics of Composite materials, 2nd Edition (1999).
the weight by 44.17% for the same stiffness in comparison with
aluminum wing. Compared to GFRP, CFRP shows better perfor-

10

View publication stats