Finite Element Analysis - FEA
- Marcelo Lavrador
- Jul 16, 2019
- 1 min read
Updated: Jan 14, 2020
Once we decided that the aircraft would have 6 motors with an expected thrust of approximately 40 kgf each, many designs were tried in order to pursue maximum mechanical strength, minimum weight and minimum structure deformation. Special attention must be paid to asymmetrical flight modes since they are likely to highly impact flight control during self-stabilization. Maximum thrust, hard landings, and asymmetrical turn conditions were some of the load cases considered for the analysis, including some load factors for safety.
All design candidates were analyzed through Finite Element Analysis (FEA), thus we could choose the best.
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Hi Jorge,
Thank you for the encouragement!
There are no FAR requirements for drones that we know of but we tried to follow the same principles during our analysis. We estimated the flight envelope based on the expected max thrust of each motor and the flight maneuvers expected for normal flight.
Excellent work Marcelo and Alvaro! It's nice to see projects like this come to live :)
Are you following any special FAR rule for the load sets?
If you need a doble check with the structure, I can help with NASTRAN / FEMAP model!
Feel free to contact me at my profile > https://www.linkedin.com/in/bocchiardoje/
Andre: Yes, I remember too. It was good, as we were forced to delve into the theory. On the other hand, solutions can come very quickly today thanks to powerful tools, which is also good because we achieve goals more effectively. By the way, this simulation was not made by me, but by Alvaro. Nice job.
I remember in college when we needed to do finite element simulations. We didn't have apps, but just C++ code and old PCs with VGA screen. It took few days and the results were not so reliable... Now it seems that everything is more than half way done!. Anyway, congratulations on the project.