SENIOR DESIGN PROJECT - 2019

Folding Wing for an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle

Graduating seniors from the UC San Diego Aerospace & Structural Departments were challenged to design, analyze, manufacture and test a folding 9-foot carbon fiber wing of a UAV for naval applications. The customer, K2 Aeronautical Systems, presented weight and loading requirements and students set out to create a cheap and effective wing.

The wing was 105 inches spanwise with an overall chord length of 12 inches and was designed to hold 166 lbf. The hinge was placed 3 feet from the root.

The project tied together the different concepts learned throughout the undergraduate experience at UC San Diego. There was heavy use of the software tools SOLIDWORKS, MATLAB, and ABAQUS for the purpose of designing the hinge and calculating aerodynamic loading, internal forces and margins of safety. Manufacturing the wing challenged and enhanced my skills with composite layup using prepreg vacuum assisted curing and me experience designing and building complex components.

This was the final result.

The wing was then mounted and loaded to 150% of limit load to test our analysis and predictions for where failure would occur. We accurately predicted it would fail at the rear spar root connection and yield at the hinge.

Throughout this 6 month long project, I was the go-to girl for all things composites. I wrote the Matlab code to perform failure analysis on the wing and I determined the margin of safety, ply orientation, and the composite layup for the skins and spar. During the manufacturing stage, I used Solidworks to make a cutting plan for all 8 parts, and created an assembly line system for the layup and trimming.

This project involved going through many reviews before moving on to the next stage, including a Mission Concept Review (MCR), Preliminary Design Review (PDR), Manufacturing Readiness Review (MRR), Test Readiness Review (TRR) and System Acceptance Review (SAR) and we passed all with flying colors.