Browsing by Author "Duarte, Alexandre Emanuel Guerreiro"
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- Development of the Structure of a long Endurance Electric UAVPublication . Duarte, Alexandre Emanuel Guerreiro; Gamboa, Pedro VieiraThe goal of this project is to design and create the structure of a long endurance unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) using solar power. The design’s main requirement was the creation of a low weight structure to handle diverse missions with a 1 Kilogram of payload. The UAV structure was divided in three parts: fuselage, empennages and empennage support, designed using CATIA® to verify interfaces and to study the positioning of the systems access and functionality. Because the main target is to build a low weight structure, the carbon fibre and wood were chosen for the fuselage, empennage support and tail, respectively. Two methods of structure analyses were used to design the composite structures, one a numerical analysis and the other the finite element method from ANSYS®. The UAV structure was manufactured in two phases. First was the composite structure using the hand lay-up and vacuum bagging method. And the second was the empennage structure using balsa wood construction. When the UAV structure was finished, a structural test was carried out to verify both analysis and manufacturing methods.