MULTIDICIPLINARY DESIGN OPTIMIZATION FOR A TAILLESS UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLE WITH ELECTRICAL PROPULSION USING THE WEISSINGER L-METHOD AS A COMPUTIONAL TOOL TO OBTAIN THE WING AERODYNAMIC CARACTERISTICS.
Alejandro Arturo Rios Cruz1; Saulo Barbosa Oliveira1; Paulo Afonso de Oliveira Soviero1; Luiz Carlos Sandoval Góes1
1 Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica
doi:10.20906/CPS/COB-2015-0918
Resumo
Multidisciplinary Design Optimization demand a consistent model of all the disciplines involved in a project. As a consequence, most of the computational consumption is employed in the execution of the disciplines involved in the optimization. Currently, there exist only a few Multidisciplinary Design Optimization methods for tailless aircraft. This configuration may represent an advantage when compared with other configurations for several aircraft tasks, as UAV's market, because of the gain in aerodynamic efficiency (energy consumption reduction), construction simplicity and increasing the internal space for the arrangement of other devices. This paper presents the development of a MDO for the project of a tailless configuration UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle). The main objective of the optimization is to maximize endurance and minimize empty weight having as the principal input variables the geometrical parameters of the wing. There were evaluated the aerodynamics and performance of each subject considering the effect of the aircraft and electronic components masses. One of the principal subjects of the MDO presented in this paper is the implementation of the Weissinger L-Method as a computational tool. The main purpose of using it, is the capability of calculate wing aerodynamic characteristics shifting aspect ratio, taper ratio, wing swept (positive and negative) and geometrical twist, offering a better trade-off between accuracy and computational effort improving considerably the time of execution when compared with another commonly used methods (like Vortex Lattice Method). For the endurance evaluation it was considered the modified performance equations for electric motor. The choice of this kind of propulsive system is based on the current tendency of using cleaner and renewal energies in aeronautical applications.
Palavras-chave: MDO; Tailless Wing; Electric Propulsion; Aerodynamics; UAV; Weissinge L-Method