AERODYNAMIC OPTIMISATION AND STABILITY ANALYSIS OF SOLAR-POWERED UNMANNED AERIAL VEHICLE (original) (raw)
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Design Analysis of Solar-Powered Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
Journal of Aerospace Technology and Management, 2016
One of the main problems in micro unmanned aerial vehicles is endurance or flight time since the general domain aircraft uses conventional fuel, which is a pollutant, has a limited life and is costly. Then, there is a huge demand for using an unlimited non-exhaustible source of energy. Solar energy is one of the unlimited available renewable energy which can be used to increase the endurance of unmanned aerial vehicle without adding significant mass or increasing the size of the fuel system. This paper aims to encourage research on renewable energy sources for aviation considering the basic challenges for a solar-powered aircraft: geographical area of operation, energy collection and storage, payload and design parameters. Hence, a plane is designed for 2 kg, including payload, and is analyzed in various aspects. Besides, the design is optimized starting from airfoil to complete structure for better performance.
IRJET- Analysing the Performance of Solar Powered Wing (UAV
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Unmanned Aerial vehicle (UAVs) has become significant in the field surveillance sectors of Many Nations. Endurance is the one of the foremost problem in the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, Generally most of the aircrafts use conventional fuel which cause pollutant, which it is also have a short time life and Expensive. So there is an Enormous demand for using a non exhaustible source of energy as a fuel. A solar energy is one of the obtainable renewable energy. Above the years, the optimization and designing of the aerodynamics of those Aerial vehicle have obtained lot of importance to the enlarging the usage to developing the UAV with effective endurance and stability at a subsonic speed. This paper contracts with comparison of analysing the Performance of a solar powered wing consisting of two different airfoil sections. Which are combined into a single wing and these wings are with each of the two homogeneous airfoil sections. The separate wing structure models were modelled through CATIA and imported into ANSYS FLUENT. Lift and Drag were calculated around it .Results were contrasted around it. Determination in regards to the benefits of utilizing a sun powered wing as use of wing with homogeneous airfoil.
Conceptual and Preliminary Design Approach of A High Altitude, Long Endurance Solar-Powered UAV
PGR Symposium 2017, University of Salford, Salford Innovation Research Centre (SIRC), 2017
In this paper, a description of newly developed conceptual and preliminary design approaches is introduced, to design a high altitude long endurance solar powered unmanned aerial vehicle. The conceptual design approach is based on representing the mass and the power requirement of each aircraft element as a fraction, in order to produce the total mass equation. The fractions have been gathered statistically from available data of existing aircraft of the same type. The mass equation will be solved for the expected range of the aspect ratio and span of the wing to generate a possible design space. The optimal design is then concluded from the design space as the minimum weight. This approach has been validated using existing data of related aircraft. In the preliminary design tool, the aircraft shape and the wing geometry are designed using the main characteristics of aircraft which were obtained from a previous design stage. An appropriate twist and sweep of the wing are then found using an optimisation tool which contains the aerodynamic and the structure models. The outcome at this stage must be a flyable aircraft geometry capable of meeting the mission requirements. Moreover, a case study of designing a solar powered aircraft is introduced using the developed design approaches.
In this paper, we performed some preliminary aerodynamic design and performance studies for a generic high altitude uninhabited and solar powered aerial vehicle. The paper focused on the performance of various wing geometries at different time periods of the year as well as at different altitudes up to 14 km. We considered six high lift airfoil sections such as Eppler 422 and S1223 at low Reynolds numbers from 8×10 5 to 1.5×10 6 to house solar panels on the wing upper surface. Our analysis showed that Eppler 422 airfoil section demonstrated better aerodynamic performance over the others. The power obtained from solar cell arrays mounted on the wing top surface area was calculated for different wing configurations including different airfoil sections, taper ratios, and sweep angles. The maximum power available from solar energy was compared for various wing configurations at different altitudes. It is concluded that going from sea level to 14 km, the required power to hold the airplane there jumps by about 250%.
Parametric Design, Aerodynamic Analysis and Parametric Optimization of a Solar UAV
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The aim of this thesis was to develop and implement a computational process to enable the swift design of different UAV configurations and their aerodynamic analysis. To this end, a CAD tool using scripts was adopted to define the UAV external shape which was later imported into a CFD tool to generate suitable meshes. The test case consisted of a Long Endurance Electric UAV (LEEUAV), that was aerodynamically analyzed and parametrically optimized. While performing the aerodynamic analyses, turbulence models Spalart-Allmaras and k − ω SST, the later used in tandem with the γ − Reθ transition model, were employed and their predictions compared with experimental data. Only the k − ω SST turbulence model and the γ − Reθ transition model were employed in the detailed aerodynamic simulations. During cruise, the baseline LEEUAV presents a lift-to-drag ratio of 14.01, stall speed of 6.21 m/s and maximum cruise speed of 29.3 m/s. To enhance the baseline cruise performance, several parametric ...
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The purpose of this research is to study and design a concept of the tactical solar power UAV. The mission requirements derived from military applications: Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) which including a longer operation time (8 hours), 350-1000 meters service ceiling, and less than 5 kg for takeoff weight. This paper, a conceptual design of solar power UAV mainly based on Noth's methodology. A simple program coding created for sizing solar power UAV by using Scilab. In addition, the vortex lattice method (XFLR5 program) also employed to evaluate the basic aerodynamic characteristics for three different low-Reynolds number airfoils. The wing incident angle was then designed. From the conceptual design results, the coding indicated that the solar power UAV is the conventional type of aircraft, which is provided 4 meters in wingspan (Aspect ratio 13), 3.88 kg for takeoff weight, and 69.13% for solar area to wing area ratio.
Solar UAVs—More Aerodynamic Efficiency or More Electrical Power?
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Solar UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) have experienced important development in recent years. The use of solar free energy is not neglected in the present energy crisis, with the intention to move toward green energies. However, an important problem arises concerning the limited amount of solar energy available on board UAVs. Until now, high-aerodynamic-efficiency configurations have been used. These configurations use high-aspect-ratio wings. However, high-aspect-ratio wings have some disadvantages regarding their excessive elasticity and weak bending resistance in the housing section. Additionally, the aircraft maneuverability is reduced. In this work, a study is proposed on a solar UAV configuration that sacrifices high aerodynamic efficiency for a higher surface area available for solar cells. In this manner, the amount of energy available on board the UAV is increased, and the UAV structure becomes more rigid and robust. The presented UAV fits better with more complex evolution...
Performance analysis of solar powered Unmanned Aerial Vehicle
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One of the main problems in micro Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) is endurance or flight time since the general domain aircraft use conventional fuel. Using conventional fuel is a pollutant, have a limited life and costly. So there is a huge demand for using an unlimited non-exhaustible source of energy as a fuel. As solar energy is one of the available renewable energy, it can be used to increase the endurance of UAV without adding significant mass nor by increasing the size of the fuel system. By considering the basic challenges for a solar powered aircraft which are a geographical area of operation, energy collection and storage, payload and design parameters, a plane was designed & fabricated by incorporating the solar cells onto the wing. Here at first how much energy is available from the sun to power the entire plane was conceptually analyzed and then it was verified with experimental results. Finally, the energy and exergy efficiencies were calculated and analyzed, as exergy is an important tool in addressing the influence of utilizing the energy resources on the environment.
Design and Manufacture of a Solar-Powered Unmanned Aerial Vehicle for Civilian Surveillance Missions
Journal of Aerospace Technology and Management, 2016
In order to promote the development of renewable energy and take advantage of the new technologies for the benefit of sustainability, both the design and the manufacture methodologies of an experimental solar-powered unmanned aerial vehicle for civilian surveillance applications are presented. Throughout the document, it is provided the historical process around the development of the aircraft. Therefore, in the first part, it is shown the aerodynamic design, which includes the 2-D and 3-D analyses of the wing platform using numerical and experimental methods, the analytical design of the empennage configuration, and the main characteristics of the performance analysis. In addition, major systems and components that characterize the aircraft are described, such as the photovoltaic solar cells configuration as well as the electronics and control system into the unmanned aerial vehicle. Lastly, the modeling for the weights distribution of the components was carried out in a preliminary test using CAD tools. Thus, it was obtained a suitable process for the manufacture of the unmanned aerial vehicle, considering that the purpose of the aircraft is to be as light and aerodynamic as possible to accomplish the mission for which it was created.
High Altitude Solar Powered UAV Design
In this paper, we performed some preliminary aerodynamic design and performance studies for a generic high altitude uninhabited and solar powered aerial vehicle. The paper focused on the performance of various wing geometries at different time periods of the year as well as at different altitudes up to 14 km. We considered six high lift airfoil sections such as Eppler 422 and S1223 at low Reynolds numbers from 8×10 5 to 1.5×10 6 to house solar panels on the wing upper surface. Our analysis showed that Eppler 422 airfoil section demonstrated better aerodynamic performance over the others. The power obtained from solar cell arrays mounted on the wing top surface area was calculated for different wing configurations including different airfoil sections, taper ratios, and sweep angles. The maximum power available from solar energy was compared for various wing configurations at different altitudes. It is concluded that going from sea level to 14 km, the required power to hold the airplane there jumps by about 250%.